B-Side Guys

Luke Pacuk’s “Emily” arrives like a fever dream interrupted by harsh fluorescent lighting. The Southampton-based Polish artist, who released his third album Bassynthronica in December 2024, constructs this track around a bassline that throbs with the persistence of heartbreak itself—fitting, given his background as a bass player who refuses genre boundaries.

The production carries post-punk’s angular DNA while allowing indie rock’s emotional directness to bleed through. Pacuk’s vocal delivery shifts between whispered vulnerability and strained desperation, particularly when he repeatedly questions “Emily why?” The phrase becomes less inquiry than accusation, each repetition stripping away another layer of trust. His voice cracks slightly on “breaking down,” a technical imperfection that serves the song’s raw emotional core perfectly.

What captivates here is how Pacuk weaves gothic imagery through decidedly modern betrayal. “The moonlight dances / On the blood-stained vine” opens the song with theatrical darkness, yet the real violence occurs in intimate spaces—promises that “felt like a sin” and memories that literally choke. The juxtaposition of “short life with your money” against “die, little nights” suggests Emily’s materialism has somehow corrupted even time itself, turning brief moments into casualties.

The instrumentation supports this narrative tension brilliantly. Pacuk layers his bass work with guitars that seem to hesitate before each chord change, creating musical anxiety that mirrors the lyrical uncertainty. The rhythm section doesn’t just keep time—it counts down to some unnamed reckoning.

His producer sensibilities show in the song’s careful dynamics. The verses feel claustrophobic, while the choruses open into something approaching catharsis, though never quite achieving it. This restraint prevents “Emily” from becoming melodramatic, instead maintaining the uncomfortable tension of someone processing betrayal in real time.

“Emily” reveals an artist confident enough to let his songs breathe in discomfort, creating space for listeners to inhabit their own fractured relationships within his carefully constructed sonic environment.