Bess Atwell

For British artist Bess Atwell, a spontaneous move to Canada – proved the catalyst for her most vividly realised, honest music to date, analysing a lifetime’s worth of relationships, decisions and motivations.

To make such an album, she abandoned some of the creative processes that had become second-nature. “The songs I really enjoyed performing from my last record were the rare moments where I put down any instruments, and it was just me singing to my audience” she says, referring to 2024’s Aaron Dessner-produced Light Sleeper.

Continuing her streak of working with some of the industry’s most in-demand producers, she teamed up with Chris Coady. “I’d considered him to be out of my league as a producer,” Atwell says with a laugh. Yet Coady loved the early demos, and she joined him at his studio in California, for three weeks.

New single ‘The Act’, is a moody, Eighties-leaning pop track written while Atwell was living in Quebec. “I like to joke that this album has ‘diss tracks’ on it” she says. “I think for a long time I didn’t know how to express anger, or stand up for myself, and that repressed emotion has come out as extreme anxiety.” Living abroad and struggling with her health, Atwell channelled her feelings into song; words she never got to say to “a lot of people back home”. It was an empowering, cathartic experience: “It feels like saying, ‘I didn’t want to have to do this on my own, but if you want to watch me, I can”.