2 days ago
Theo Bleak: Dundee rising star on unexpected Fife friendship and dead birds ahead of 71 Brewing show
When Theo Bleak take to the stage in Dundee later this month, it will come as a landmark gig for Broughty Ferry-based rising star Katie Lynch.
Since adopting her alter ego in 2022, Katie has released a handful of EPs to rising acclaim while developing a growing fanbase.
And although she has played her home city before, this date promises to be extra special.
Firstly, Theo Bleak, the project formed with long-term musical partner Mark Johnston, are the first to play local beer maker 71 Brewing's brand new venue Canvas at their Bellfield Street headquarters.
Furthermore, the gig promises 'live visuals and artwork' from a new collaborator – photographic artist Kit Martin, who also provides the imagery for the cover of Theo Bleak's latest EP, Bad Luck Is Two Little Flowers, her first made available on vinyl.
For the front cover, Kit provides a delicate picture of flowers created by camera-less photography – in this case by exposing photographic paper direct to sunlight with objects creating often ghostly images.
Musician Katie found the Newport-on-Tay-based creative's work online while seeking local artists to work with and immediately felt a connection, she explains over coffee in her new pal's kitchen.
'I was just instantly in love with it,' she says.
'With art and culture, I'm in to anything that's got a philosophical or profound edge to it, where there's layers or a subtext. I felt like the work on face value was so beautiful, but when you look closer, there's a darkness there.'
That was certainly the case with the first of Kit's images that Katie viewed – a dead bird – feeling it chimed with her hushed arrangements, she reveals:
'With my own music, I think sometimes things sound sweet, but what I'm singing about is very different.'
While Katie has been an independent artist for several years, having first worked with Mark in alternative pop group Kit became a full-time artist later in life.
Having worked as a medical and police photographer, along with time at NGO Zero Waste Scotland, Kit pivoted to a more creative life once she moved to Tayside.
Nowadays, she sells her own pieces and runs workshops in techniques such as pinhole cameras at venues including DCA as well as local schools, most recently Aberhill Primary and Levenmouth Academy.
When Katie got in touch, the artist immediately responded. Although unaware of the musician, she too felt Theo Bleak's music was sympathetic to her own sensibility.
'There's death in my work – decay, life cycles, everything,' she explains.
'Definitely, melancholy comes into it, is in my life and in the music I enjoy listening to as well. There's a melancholic element in Katie's music, but it's so beautiful.'
Kit almost saw the band perform in her village at last year's inaugural Lughnasadh Festival held by Forgan Arts Centre, but arrived late as she had been an artist at Pittenweem Arts Festival.
Katie laughs at the thought.
'It's like we were passing ships,' she points out. 'We weren't aware of each other, but when we met, there were so many similarities: our birthdays are the day after each other.'
For the EP, Katie and Mark selected some of Kit's ghostly flower images – coltsfoot for the front sleeve – that the artist thought she'd sold, but then found in a drawer.
'Serendipity', the photographer marvels.
Katie admits to having been a loner for much of her life – she recently attempted Perthshire and Angus walking route the Cateran Trail solo, wild camping along the way, and claims she would love to live on Skye.
So while the singer is thrilled to have met a fellow artist on a similar wavelength, she is also pleased to be making a connection among Tayside's fertile creative scene.
'I really enjoyed that the whole time we were on the other side of the river from each other,' she says.
'I found that really moving 'cause I was, like, 'Oh my God, there's other people out there'.
'Dundee and Fife are coming to life so much at the moment and it's just made me really excited.'
