The acclaimed British singer-songwriter enters a new chapter with Nettwerk, collaborating with producer Chris Coady on a dream-folk single that transforms heartbreak, emotional distance, and the uncertainty of starting over into a quietly powerful declaration of independence.
Sometimes leaving a place is the only way to understand what was keeping us there.
For British singer-songwriter Bess Atwell, moving to Quebec for nine months became an unexpected exercise in emotional clarity. Far from the familiar relationships and routines that had shaped her life, she found herself confronting questions about independence, self-preservation, and the complicated process of recognizing when certain connections no longer serve us.
Those experiences form the emotional foundation of “The Act,” her new single and first release following the announcement of her signing to Nettwerk Music Group.
Produced by Chris Coady, whose credits include Beach House and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the track introduces a new chapter in Atwell’s artistic evolution, one defined by a growing willingness to embrace uncertainty without constantly searching for explanations.
“This song was written when I had just moved to Quebec, where I lived for 9 months,” Atwell explains. “It was a birds-eye view of the relationships I had chosen to leave behind, not just physically. It’s an empowering song for me that basically says ‘I didn’t want to have to do this alone but I absolutely can.’”
It’s a deceptively simple statement, but one that reveals a significant shift in perspective for an artist whose music has long explored the intricacies of emotional vulnerability.
Where her earlier work often seemed concerned with understanding the complexities of relationships and the difficult feelings they leave behind, “The Act” suggests a different possibility: that sometimes growth means accepting that not every question requires an answer.
The Emotional Geography of Leaving
There is a particular kind of clarity that comes from physical distance.
Relationships that once occupied the center of our everyday lives can begin to look different when removed from their familiar settings. Patterns become easier to recognize, expectations lose some of their authority, and experiences that previously felt overwhelming can be understood from a broader perspective.
But leaving home doesn’t necessarily mean escaping ourselves.
For Atwell, Quebec offered both an opportunity to step outside her familiar environment and a confrontation with emotional experiences she had carried across the Atlantic.
The distance allowed her to reflect on the dissolution of longstanding friendships, examine her own role in recurring relationship dynamics, and begin expressing frustrations she had previously struggled to articulate.
That tension between escape and self-examination gives “The Act” much of its emotional weight.
Rather than presenting independence as a triumphant act of reinvention, Atwell approaches it as something more complicated: a capacity we sometimes discover only when circumstances leave us with little choice.
The song’s confidence therefore doesn’t come from having everything figured out.
It comes from realizing that uncertainty doesn’t necessarily have to prevent us from moving forward.
A New Sonic Language
“The Act” also marks an important development in Atwell’s musical direction.
Working with Los Angeles producer Chris Coady, she has begun exploring arrangements that introduce more prominent synthesizer textures and a heightened sense of atmosphere into her already distinctive dream-folk sound.
Coady’s approach to production proved particularly compatible with Atwell’s creative instincts.
Where the recording studio can sometimes become an overwhelming space of endless possibilities, his structured working methods offered the kind of boundaries that allowed her to experiment with greater confidence.
The collaboration began with several days in a Montreal studio before developing into a full record.
Together, they explored ways of expanding the emotional possibilities of her songwriting without sacrificing the intimacy that has always defined it.
For Atwell, production isn’t simply a decorative element added after a song has been written.
It’s another language through which emotions can be expressed, sometimes communicating what lyrics cannot.
That philosophy helps explain why her music can feel simultaneously understated and expansive.
Her crystalline vocals and introspective writing remain central, but the arrangements create spaces in which meaning can emerge through texture, atmosphere, and the emotional associations of sound itself.
From Light Sleeper to a New Chapter
Atwell has spent the past several years establishing herself as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary British folk and alternative music.
Her 2021 album Already, Always introduced a distinctive songwriting sensibility, combining intimate lyrical observations with restrained melodies and a remarkable ability to make deeply personal experiences feel universally recognizable.
The record helped establish a devoted international audience and led to touring opportunities alongside artists including The National and Ben Howard, as well as sold-out headline performances across the UK, Europe, Australia, and Canada.
Her artistic development continued with 2024’s Light Sleeper, produced by Aaron Dessner of The National.
The album expanded her sonic palette while maintaining the emotional precision that had become central to her work.
Exploring themes of vulnerability, self-belief, and compassion, Light Sleeper captured an artist becoming increasingly comfortable with the contradictions of her inner life.
Now, “The Act” suggests another evolution.
Rather than abandoning the emotional openness of her earlier work, Atwell appears to be approaching it from a place of greater self-assurance.
The questions remain, but the need to resolve them has become less urgent.
Her new music embraces the possibility of existing within uncertainty rather than treating it as something that must always be overcome.
That shift is also reflected in her growing willingness to take creative risks, particularly when it comes to the relationship between studio recordings and live performance.
Where practical concerns about touring once influenced her production decisions, she has begun prioritizing the songs themselves, allowing arrangements to develop without immediately limiting them to what might be possible onstage.
It’s a small but meaningful change in philosophy, one that reflects a broader movement away from perfectionism and toward creative freedom.
The Freedom to Be Imperfect
Atwell’s signing to Nettwerk represents a significant milestone in that evolution.
The partnership follows years of building an audience through deeply personal songwriting and an independent-minded approach to her career.
For an artist whose work depends on emotional authenticity, maintaining creative control remains essential.
But rather than viewing industry support as inherently incompatible with artistic independence, Atwell has found a collaborative relationship that allows her to continue making her own decisions while benefiting from a broader team.
The announcement arrives alongside growing momentum for “The Act,” which has already received support from BBC 6 Music and was first performed live during a session for Steve Lamacq.
She also recently joined her new labelmates The Paper Kites on their UK headline tour, including a sold-out performance at London’s Roundhouse.
Looking ahead, Atwell will headline the Barbican in London in February 2027, another milestone in a career that continues to expand internationally.
Yet the most interesting development may be happening away from the industry’s traditional markers of success.
Atwell is learning to measure her creative life less through the pursuit of perfection and more through the ability to remain present, make meaningful work, and enjoy the process of making it.
We spoke with Bess Atwell about the emotional consequences of leaving home, the complexities of independence, her collaboration with Chris Coady, and why embracing the unknown might be the most liberating creative decision of all.
In Conversation With Bess Atwell
Your new single “The Act” was written during the nine months you spent living in Quebec, away from the people and places that had previously defined your everyday life. How did that physical distance change your perspective on the relationships you left behind, and did moving somewhere unfamiliar allow you to recognize aspects of yourself that had been difficult to see before?
I believe in the famous adage “wherever you go, there you are” and, while you can’t outrun yourself, to my surprise I found that physical distance did create some emotional distance from the relationships I’d left behind. Being somewhere entirely new widens your perspective because you’re more in touch with just how big the world is. I think this sort of “zoom out” created space for me to be more objective and clear.
You’ve described “The Act” as an empowering realization that, although you didn’t want to face certain experiences alone, you were entirely capable of doing so. Do you think independence is something we consciously choose or something we’re sometimes forced to discover, and how has your understanding of emotional self-reliance evolved through your songwriting?
I think some people choose it and others, like me, are forced into it. I have a strange relationship with the idea of “independence” because I’m simultaneously an introvert who loves their own company, and also afraid of facing the outside world alone. Songwriting has always been a way for me to self-soothe, so in that sense it’s been pivotal in my own journey to strengthen my own self-reliance.
Your previous album, Light Sleeper, explored vulnerability, self-belief, and compassion through deeply introspective songwriting. How does “The Act” represent a shift in your emotional perspective, and do you feel you’re entering a period where your music is less concerned with understanding past experiences and more focused on reclaiming control over your future?
My new music doesn’t necessarily have more answers than Light Sleeper, but it definitely asks less questions. I think it sits more confidently in the unknown and reclaims parts of myself I previously battled with.
You’ve worked with Aaron Dessner on Light Sleeper and now Chris Coady, whose production credits include Beach House and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. What did Chris bring to your creative process that felt different from your previous collaborations, and how did working together encourage you to experiment with sounds or arrangements that might once have felt outside your comfort zone?
Before we committed to a full record, Chris and I did a few days at a studio in Montreal to get a feel for each other. I immediately clicked with the way he worked. Sometimes, I can feel a bit frustrated in the studio because of ambiguous timelines and lack of control, but Chris works in quite a regimented way that really spoke to me. I like to have parameters around my creativity, otherwise I can start to just feel lost. He has a great instinct for arrangement and helped me carve out new sections for several of the songs, bringing a synth-heavy, other-worldliness to the record.
Your music has always balanced intimate, almost confessional lyrics with increasingly expansive and atmospheric production. How do you decide when a song needs to remain stripped back and emotionally exposed versus when it deserves a larger sonic landscape, and can production sometimes communicate feelings that lyrics alone cannot express?
I’m a big believer that great lyrics alone don’t make a good song. I definitely think music / production alone can convey emotion that you can’t articulate with words. The music is what’s read between the lines, and that stuff is so important.
I often produce as I write, so what the song requires production-wise kind of reveals itself as I go. Of course, if I’m really proud of the lyrics I want them to be audible, but other than that the lyrics don’t really define the scale of the production.
Moving away from home is often romanticized as an act of reinvention, but it can also expose the emotional patterns and unresolved relationships we carry with us. Did your experience in Quebec feel more like an escape, a confrontation with yourself, or a combination of the two, and how did that experience influence the stories you wanted to tell?
Definitely a combination of the two. Being in the French-speaking part of Canada, the culture is surprisingly different, so I felt a world away, but at the same time very preoccupied with relationships back home. I’d decided to walk away from a couple of long term friendships, which was a big heartbreak. The space really helped me identify my own role in the patterns that seemed to keep unfolding with the people closest to me. While I was identifying my own wrong-turns, I also had a clearer view of the way people had wrong-footed me, and found a way to express that frustration. I’m not great at standing up for myself, so I used parts of this record to do so.
Your songwriting is frequently praised for its honesty and emotional precision, yet writing autobiographically can also mean revisiting difficult experiences long after they’ve happened. Has your relationship with vulnerability changed as your audience has grown, and are there moments when you deliberately choose ambiguity over complete honesty to protect the people or experiences behind a song?
If I can make a song more ambiguous without compromising the art, I do so, as I don’t want to welcome any unnecessary drama into my life! But, there are plenty of moments in this record where I couldn’t do that without it being at the expense of the song, so I’m a little nervous for some of those moments. It also feels good to be true to myself, though!
You’ve toured with artists such as The National, Ben Howard, and The Paper Kites while developing an increasingly international audience of your own. What have those experiences taught you about connecting with listeners across different cultures, and has performing your most personal songs in front of larger audiences changed their emotional meaning for you?
It’s kind of amazing to play a different city each night and have it feel so… the same. In a good way. It reminds you that we’re all just so similar, really – music unites us in our humanity, regardless of our cultural context. Playing for larger audiences doesn’t really change the emotional meaning of my songs, for me. I guess, the larger the audience, the more anonymity I feel I have on stage, for some reason, which probably informs how I perform.
Your signing to Nettwerk marks a new chapter in your career, following years of building a devoted audience through independent-minded, deeply personal music. What were you looking for in a label partnership at this stage, and how do you balance the opportunities that come with greater industry support against the importance of maintaining your creative independence?
Nettwerk has been amazing at trusting me to make pretty much all of the creative decisions, so, so far it’s only been a benefit to have such a great and widespread team supporting this campaign.
With “The Act,” a new label partnership, and a headline performance at London’s Barbican scheduled for February 2027, you’re entering a significant period of artistic growth. When you look back at the songwriter who released Already, Always in 2021, what has changed most about your understanding of success, and what creative risks are you now ready to take that you might not have considered earlier in your career?
A risk I took when writing this record was prioritising the songs, over concerns about how to play the music live. I didn’t want to be held back by worries of what I could or couldn’t afford to do live, like I’ve been in the past. I’m less of a perfectionist now. I’m mostly satisfied with doing the best I can in each moment. I have to find a way to enjoy this career path, and expecting myself to always do my absolute best wasn’t sustainable.
There is something particularly revealing about Atwell’s observation that her new music doesn’t necessarily offer more answers than her previous work, but asks fewer questions.
For an artist whose songwriting has long been defined by introspection, that distinction suggests a meaningful change in how she relates to uncertainty.
Where the desire to understand every emotional experience can sometimes become its own form of confinement, accepting the limits of our understanding can create space for a different kind of freedom.
“The Act” captures that transition without suggesting that independence is effortless or that leaving difficult relationships behind automatically resolves the emotions attached to them.
Instead, it acknowledges the heartbreak, self-doubt, and contradictions that can accompany the decision to move forward.
Atwell’s willingness to embrace those contradictions extends beyond her personal life and into her creative process.
By allowing herself to take risks, relinquish certain expectations, and approach her work with less perfectionism, she is discovering a version of artistic confidence that doesn’t depend on having everything under control.
And perhaps that’s what makes this new chapter so compelling.
The artist who once searched for clarity through songwriting is now finding something equally valuable in the ability to exist without it.
Bess Atwell’s “The Act” is out now via Nettwerk Music Group. She will headline London’s Barbican in February 2027.
Listen: “The Act”
Watch: “The Act” — Official Music Video
Live: Bess Atwell at the Barbican — Tickets & Information
Photography: Elizabeth Landry.
