It is only slightly begrudgingly that I admit I had not listened to Bess Atwell until I saw her in the flesh. A quick Google search assured me of something halfway between indie and folk, so I thought it only fitting to wait outside of the Oxford Art Factory reading Matthew Lewis’ The Monk. For what is more indie, more tumblr than taking a book to a gig? One of great yearning and stature at that? One which, unbeknownst to myself at the time, set the scene for Atwell’s music: a dreamy, filmic, post-breakup soundtrack. Lewis preludes: “But who for a moment, can deceive the eyes of love?”
In a mumblecore-esque crowd holding a plastic wine glass, I watched a supple gathering of fans await the musician, who took to the stage humbly in her knee-high boots and bleached bob. What proceeded was a gentle sway that rocked through the audience: a girl and her guitar quoting Leonard Cohen and serenading us directly. It felt intimate, it felt knowable. Atwell has a sound that’s arguably best played live. A colloquial indie turned specific. A sound like a memory, a video tape, an infusion of both soundtrack synth and heavy folk guitar, and a voice that cut right through the crowd, right into the middle of us.
Atwell moved through her new record Light Sleeper, a creation of nostalgia. A certain sense of time moving, perhaps only magnified by the stagelights rhythmically belting into our faces. The light was a reminder, a nostalgic prompt, a break of the proverbial fourth wall: Atwell wasn’t just singing to us, but about us. These too, are our feelings and experiences, our joy and pain and yearning. She asked us, “haven’t you ever felt like this?” She offered up intimate recounts of her own, in the hopes we could mirror back a memory. She says “the meal is on the table but the dinner is at the door.”
However rich the lyricism, I do believe her music would’ve hit closer to home if I were going through a breakup. Perhaps the kind of songs to belt in the car whilst it pours outside on the way home from your retail job. Although I couldn’t mirror the feeling of extremity, it is one I do know and have known. One that perhaps everyone has known. There is a universality to it, perhaps why every other song ever written is about a breakup.
Despite her heavy lyricism, Atwell addressed her audience with personal conversation, likend to sitting in a living room with her. “Being on stage as a clumsy person,” she said, “is ample opportunity to embarrass yourself.” We heard about her limited merch runs, the inability to bring the rest of her band over and the feeling of playing to an Australian audience, the very first time for the British artist.
As the evening drew nearer to close, the artist voiced to us that she didn’t want to sound “presumptuous” but she was not going to play an encore. “I just wanted to come up here and play everything I wanted to play,” she said, “I’m gonna play two more songs, and then leave you alone.” And in those last two songs, Atwell serenaded her audience, reassuring us that she is not afraid to be a light sleeper anymore, she is not afraid to feel. Although I will (unbegrudgingly) admit to being somewhat of an emo, Atwell’s music still spoke to a softer, teenage self who needed to hear that it is okay to weep. A celluloid soundtrack, a poignant coming of age reverberated around the Oxford Art Factory.
Follow @bessatwell on Instagram for more updates on her music and tours.
