Track Of The Day: Bleach Lab – ‘Talk It Out’

A bittersweet reflection on romantic burnout, South-London based four piece Bleach Lab have shared their latest single ‘Talk It Out’. Taken from the second EP Nothing Feels Real, which is set for release on 15th October, the track is a shimmering ode to the hard won emotional resilience that’s gained after a particularly draining relationship.

“’Talk It Out’ started as a song about mental health and times when people should open up about their inner thoughts and anxieties,” the band explain. “As the song developed, we approached it from a perspective of being run down so much by a relationship that you thought you loved so much but over time realising that it’s changing who you are, all just to make the other person happy at the cost of your own happiness”.

Jenna Kyle’s distinctive vocals float over atmospheric riffs and shimmering cymbal crashes, as she works through the grief and anger of breaking away from a toxic relationship. These intense, introspective but relatable threads of emotions are what hold together Bleach Lab’s new EP, Nothing Feels Real. Produced by Stephen Street (The Cranberries, The Smiths, Blur), the record looks set to be another shining collection of dream-pop tunes with Bleach Lab’s trademark melancholic edge.

Listen to ‘Talk It Out’ below.

 

Follow Bleach Lab on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter & Facebook

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Bleach Lab – ‘Old Ways’

An atmospheric lament about being caught in emotional purgatory, South London-based Bleach Lab have shared their latest single ‘Old Ways’. Taken from their upcoming EP A Calm Sense of Surrounding, which is set for release on 19th March, the track is a bittersweet, stirring reflection on the conflicting emotions we experience following a difficult break-up.

“’Old Ways’ explores the angry side of the grieving process at the end of a relationship,” vocalist Jenna Kyle explains. “Anger towards the way in which they treated you but also towards oneself for still missing them regardless.” Through her emotive vocals and earnest lyrics, Kyle explores the urgent need to get past this stage of grief, with guitarist Frank Wates’ fluid riffs softening the sharp edges of her words.

Working through unexpected grief majorly informed the songs on Bleach Lab’s upcoming EP. The death of bassist Josh Longman’s father and the breakdown of Kyle’s long-term relationship seeped into the band’s song-writing, as they began to musically explore the five stages of grief – anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. ‘Old Ways’ deals with the first of these stages, breaching the habit of self-flagellation in an attempt to find emotional relief during a traumatic time.

Listen to ‘Old Ways’ below.

 

Follow Bleach Lab on Spotify, Instagram, Twitter & Facebook for more updates.

Photo Credit: Isy Townsend

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Katie Gately – ‘Loom’

Both a piercing cry into the gulf of grief, and a collection of dark lullabies that provide momentary distraction from it; Katie Gately‘s second album Loom is a poignant ode to her late Mother, who she lost to cancer in 2018. Set for release via Houndstooth on 14th February, the electronic musician & producer has channelled her grief into eight new songs.

Gately created Loom in the aftermath of her Mother’s cancer diagnosis, thus giving the record it’s dark, melancholy, intensely sobering feel. She used real earthquake recordings in her productions; as well as samples of peacocks screaming, pill bottles shaking, and heavily processed audio from her parent’s wedding to reflect the void left by the loss.

Loom opens with the quiet, hypnotic ‘Ritual’. Layers of Gately’s beguiling vocals ring out over cautious electronics that gently rise and fall in time with her voice. The at times claustrophobic ‘Allay’ personifies the cancer that stole Gately’s Mother. Even without knowledge of this context, it’s still an unsettling listen, with its severe electronics and dense beats.

Inspired by Leonard Cohen – one of her Mother’s favourite artists – ‘Waltz’ is a haunting, powerful call to arms encouraging listeners to dance, even in the midst of overwhelming grief. Gately wrote it after listening to Cohen’s track ‘Take This Waltz’ on repeat for an entire day, resulting in five minutes of dark, energized sound. Following track ‘Bracer’ is a powerful, ten minute eerie epic. It’s also worth noting that it was Gately’s Mother’s favourite track on Loom. 

Along with ‘Waltz’, Gately describes these songs as being about the same thing: “They’re about being disoriented and wanting to check out with a substance. I used whisky.” Both tracks have a manic, kinetic quality; as if the whiskey that fuelled their formation is flowing through the veins of her listeners, encouraging them to perform a contorted dance to Gately’s soundscapes.

Much like opener ‘Ritual’, ‘Rite’ provides a few minutes of breathing space, before dense beats and a menacing blur of sounds on ‘Tower’ make the hairs on the back of the neck twitch. Here, Gately inhabits the medicine that confronts her Mother’s cancer. For the first four minutes, it’s abrasive and severe, but it switches for the final two; with Gately’s soothing vocals acting as a tonic to the toxicity.

The startling, cathartic sounds on penultimate track ‘Flow’ ring out for six powerful minutes. Written from the perspective of her Mother, this track is one of the strongest on the record. Final track ‘Rest’ is announced through Gately’s poignant vocals, closing an album that’s both shocking and soothing in equal measure.

Gately has said that the process of creating Loom is “blurry” to her now, perhaps repressing some of the darker, more desperate feelings that must have permeated it. Whilst her discomfort and grief are audible throughout the record, the fact she confronted her complex emotions proves she is both a genuinely talented musician, and an incredibly brave woman.

Pre-order Katie Gately’s new album Loom here.

Katie Gately UK Live Dates 2020
March 31 – Manchester – The White Hotel
April 1 – London – Cafe Oto (with support from Hinako Omori)

Photo Credit: Steve Gullick

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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LISTEN: Katie Gately – ‘Waltz’

Inspired by one of her Mother’s favourite artists, Leonard Cohen; Katie Gately‘s new track ‘Waltz’ is a haunting, powerful call to arms encouraging listeners to dance, even in the midst of overwhelming grief.

The track is lifted from Gately’s upcoming album Loom, which is set for release via Houndstooth on 14th February. The record is dedicated to Gately’s Mother, who passed away in 2018 due to a sudden onset of a particularly aggressive form of cancer. The electronic musician & producer has channelled her grief into these new songs, and ‘Waltz’ is one example of how transformative this can be.

After listening to Leonard Cohen’s track ‘Take This Waltz’ on repeat for an entire day, Gately was inspired to write ‘Waltz’. The accompanying video directed by Samantha Shay was shot at an abandoned Catholic convent, and features modern dancer Bobbi Jene Smith opposite Gately, who appears in her own video for the very first time.

“When you see me, I am already gone” muses Gately at the beginning of the track, as Jene Smith performs her primal, urgent, crooked choreography around the stark walls of the convent. Speaking about the track, and the accompanying visuals, Gately explains further: “When I listen, I see images that correlate to a zebra on a bad LSD trip. But I feel that its absurdity honours the chaos of losing someone you love more than time, space or measure. And so perhaps my message is: it’s okay to feel like a drunk zebra when your heart is breaking. Or, to quote the far greater poet Leonard Cohen: “When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That’s about all you can do.””

Gately’s admirable outlook and bravery in writing and recording the video for ‘Waltz’ didn’t go unnoticed by Director Samantha Shay. “When I work with a musician, there is a wide spectrum to feelings about being filmed or photographed, and Katie expressed that she didn’t feel comfortable on camera,” she explains. “The day of the shoot, I asked Katie if she wanted to be challenged as a performer or not, and she practically demanded it of me. What resulted was absolutely magnetic. She wilfully and bravely let her walls collapse in front of us, and this video, to me, is a powerful portrait of her.”

And what a beguiling, intense portrait it is. Watch the video for ‘Waltz’ below and follow Katie Gately on Facebook & Spotify for more updates.

Katie Gately UK Live Dates 2020
April 1st – London’s Cafe Oto

Photo Credit: Steve Gullick

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

Kate CrudgingtonLeave a comment