Bess Atwell Entrades

Doors 7.30pm | Tickets £17.00 + Booking Fees | Theatre

 

Brighton-based artist Bess Atwell and her new single ‘Sylvester,’ sees Bess contemplate and re-evaluate familial roles and relationships through the resurrection of the track’s namesake, an imaginary character from her childhood. The single is the first new music from Atwell following her critically acclaimed album Already, Always, which was released via Lucy Rose’s Communion imprint Real Kind Records.

 

For Atwell, ’Sylvester’ personifies the inner tension between the desire to be a source of joy and distraction to those we love, yet the subsequent dissatisfaction and loneliness these attempts can bring. In the liminal space between this conflict is the ever-present sense of hopefulness that these two feelings can co-exist. Although Atwell’s knack for capturing the nuance and minutiae of the human experience in her songwriting is well documented, in ‘Sylvester’ this takes on a new resonance. Shortly following the track’s recording at Dessner’s studio in upstate New York, she received her diagnosis for Autism Spectrum Disorder, bringing with it a wave of validation for her both personally and artistically.

 

In her own words, Atwell shares; “Sylvester is a character I created on a family holiday as a child to make my parents laugh. It’s a song primarily about family, the roles we play to keep the peace, and the desire for a more genuine form of connection. Relational dynamics have often felt like a performance to me which has left me feeling lonely, acutely aware that we’re mostly just going through the motions of connection. This makes more sense to me than ever before with a recent diagnosis of autism, and it’s where the cyclical, relentless imagery of running on a track comes from. Aaron (Dessner) did a brilliant job in bringing out the essence of the song with his production and instrumentation. The ambient lead guitar was one of the first things we recorded, his intuitive first instinct capturing the expansive, beautiful – but ultimately uncontrollable – essence of family and history. My only real non-negotiable was that the song had a sense of urgency and drive in the choruses which Aaron nailed with repetitive and ascending patterns.”