Halfway through Negotiations, the latest EP from Kilo Kish, the Los Angeles pop experimentalist suddenly sounds like an AI assistant experiencing ego death. “When I came to myself/I was gone/And no one else/Knew but me,” she murmurs during “When I Came to Myself,” a slow-burn highlight from the follow-up to Kish’s consumerism-critiquing 2022 album American Gurl. Her glitchy delivery adds a menacing glare to the heightened sense of self-awareness that recurs like a pop-up ad throughout Negotiations. The EP’s chrome-plated pop and electro music balances self-worth with self-sabotage, suggesting you can rewrite bad habits into more productive ways of living like you would update your laptop’s software.
A corresponding website for Negotiations describes it as an “exploration of the human body and mind as interconnected machines navigating the complexities of modern life,” including the way a working artist can come to feel like a cog in a machine. Accompanying music videos show Kish in dystopian corporate offices and breakrooms, quietly bristling against the sterile environments (in one short clip, she’s put on hold with the music industry itself, transmogrified into a purgatorial, always-busy phoneline). The EP’s cold sound palette, coproduced by Kish and longtime collaborator Ray Brady, conveys this theme; sharp-cornered synths, punchy programmed beats, and vocoder-warped, monotone vocals establish an icy, intentionally distancing effect across the six tracks.
The heady concept works alongside Kish’s laconic lyrics, which openly address being at war with your own invasive thoughts. “Frankly, I’m just going through the motions,” she admits on the highlight “Reprogram,” her terse delivery punctuated by stuttering, robotic backing vocals. Then she drops the posture for the chorus, where she tries to suss out the source of her feelings of defeat: “Every time I think I want to do this/Waiting for the second movement,” she sings, voicing a sentiment familiar to anyone who’s endured crushing burnout, “Every time I think I want to try, I don’t want to try.” Opener “Digital Emotional,” meanwhile, turns mechanical wordplay into a delightful, straightforward pop workout. Whizzing synths ratchet up the track’s airy, singsong verses whose lyrics link emotional aloofness to technological distance. The song’s dazzling, heartsick chorus—where Kish’s voice climbs up into a brisk, imploring register—is among the most memorable and emotionally resonant in her catalog.
Negotiations’ only misstep is “Negotiate,” a collaboration with R&B crooner Miguel. Trading verses in a foggy back-and-forth, the pair sound muted beneath pointillist synth notes and a lumbering beat. The washed-out song briefly drags down the EP’s momentum; Kish achieves a more effective buildup on the kiss-off “DCMU,” another track draped in glistening vocoder effects. Here, Kish takes on a slippery flow over clattering drums to dress down a former lover who messed up so badly she’s now forced to “obsess over the careless nature of the male species.” Each verse builds toward a cyclonic swirl of stomping drums and synths, amped up to a piercingly affecting crescendo. For all the existential concerns lurking within her lyrics, these moments when Kish’s honeyed melodies coalesce with her airtight production effortlessly brightens up Negotiations’ anxious perspective.
