FOLLOWING a string of well-received releases over the last few years, Bess Atwell is back with her first single on her new label, Lucy Roses’s Real Kind Records.
Premiered on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6Music show, ‘Co-op’ is a stunning return that sees Atwell’s lush, calming vocals delivered against a serene, rippling instrumental. Pairing the poetic specificity and folky tendencies of Phoebe Bridgers and Julia Jacklin with a summery haze akin to Lana Del Rey, she invites us into her world with bold imagery and poetic flair.
A small vignette of a life shared with her partner, it’s a warm, comforting number that finds power in its subtlety.
Speaking about her new single Bess says, “Flipping between past and present tense, I think of this song the same way I think of a memory that keeps interrupting the current moment. It’s a snapshot of a time of refuge and routine. It’s an illustration of mine and my partner’s life together. The relationship seemed to provide me with some sort of permission to recuperate from family trauma, as if realising for the first time that there was a life outside of that chaos lulled me into an emotional slumber. Through the song I grapple with the desire for, and fear of, comfort. I used references to Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’ to depict a vivid nostalgia and an affinity for trivialities that serve to calm when darker thoughts set in.”
Directed herself and shot by George Ogilvie, watch the video below.
