Bess Atwell

For British artist Bess Atwell, a spontaneous move to Canada – where she lived for nine months – proved the catalyst for one of her most vividly realised, honest albums to date. Cut a Figure, her fourth record, doesn’t just trace the outlines; it digs deep, as Atwell analyses a lifetime’s worth of relationships, decisions and motivations.‍

‍Continuing her streak of working with some of the industry’s most in-demand producers, for Cut a Figure she teamed up with Chris Coady, whose credits include revered albums from Foals, Slowdive, Beach House, Future Islands and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “He was in the upper echelon of people I wanted to work with, and I’d considered him to be very out of my league as a producer,” Atwell says with a laugh. Yet Coady heard the early demos and loved what he heard, of course, and she joined him at his studio in Glendale, California, for three weeks: “The longest I’ve ever spent in the studio making a record.” ‍

Atwell has long been known for the emotional acuity in her songs, tackling complicated subjects such as family strife, heartache and resentment with astonishing sensitivity. On Cut a Figure, though, she turns the magnifying glass on herself, to discover that her own way of dealing with emotions – perhaps most crucially, with anger – has evolved.

Atwell received critical acclaim for Light Sleeper, which the Observer described in its four-star review as dealing with “all kinds of emotive situations, worked into poignant, dreamlike miniatures”. Her voice, too, has been the subject of near-unanimous praise, with a 2021 review of her second album, Already, Always, in The Independent observing: “[Her] vocals have a crystalline quality… her delivery is swooning, romantic.”