WATCH: Bess Atwell - 'Nobody' (Live)

I've been a little quiet here... I had some awful news last week and haven't really had the mental space or time to sit and write blog posts. Grief is intense. Dipping my toes into the water and I'm ~back~ slightly (if temporarily) to share a video that brought me some real comfort this week. Bess Atwell shares her new record Already, Always on September 24th via Real Kind Records - I had a lil blog perk yesterday and listened to the record early... it's a stunner, just as I expected. Last week, Bess shared a live performance video for Nobody, directed by James Hough and featuring Marcus Hamblett and Jools Owen on horns. 

Speaking on the video, Bess shares "this is one of my favourite tracks on the record so I wanted to highlight it by doing something that felt a bit more special. I've always wanted to perform with a brass section so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. The video was done by the brilliant James Hough. It's rare to find someone capable of capturing high quality audio and visual all on their own so I felt very lucky to get to work with him on this. It's important to me that the whole record is connected through the same visual world so we filmed in the garden that the artwork for 'Times Comes in Roses' was shot - even using the same chair that's on that cover." 

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WATCH: The Big Moon - 'Take A Piece'

"Look we made a pop song!" 

This one is sounding glorious on the blog playlist this week, nestled between new tracks from Friendly Fires and Love Fame Tragedy. Taken from upcoming album Walking Like We Do (due 10th January via Fiction Records), The Big Moon are paying homage to some rather legendary 1990s boybands with the video for their current single, Take A Piece. Worth a watch for the overwhelming nostalgia alone.

Talking about the track, vocalist Juliette Jackson explains that "I initially wrote this song for someone else [...] I'd written an album's worth of songs but a lot of them felt similar to our first album and I wanted to try something different."

"I'd just watched a documentary about this pop star and seen how insane their life was and their intense relationship with their fans, and was blown away by how much of themselves they'd had to give up to have the life they had [...] This mega pop star's life was literally nothing like mine but I could really identify with the vulnerability of being a performer and standing on stage every night and feeling the eyes of an audience, which can feel either grounding and unifying or - occasionally - scary and isolating." 

If you'd like to catch the band playing live soon, you're in luck as they're heading out on tour with Bombay Bicycle Club across the UK in January and February - and they've just announced a run of their own shows for Feb/March. Full listings here.

27th Feb: The Fleece, Bristol
28th: O2 Academy 2, Liverpool
29th: Summerhall Arts Centre, Edinburgh
2nd March: Contemporary, Nottingham
3rd: O2 Academy 2, Oxford

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WATCH: Dizzy - 'Joshua' (Communion & RAK Studio Session)

It's no secret that I'm a pretty big fan of the label Communion and I'm digging one of their latest signings, Dizzy. Hailing from Ontario, I caught the quartet playing live at The Great Escape in Brighton earlier in the year - it was a last minute choice between catching them or heading to my hotel room to catch up on sleep, and I was glad that I chose to trek up to Green Door Store to see them with a couple of friends (staying up even longer for a 1am Gengahr set...) Having never listened to them I wasn't sure what to expect, but was instantly drawn in by singer Katie's stunning vocals. Despite the late stage time, she had complete command of the audience and we were treated to a range of songs from their recently announced debut album, Baby Teeth, which you can pre-order here. For now, check out a live session of Joshua, it's soothing, intricate and more than a little bit dreamy.

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