EP // Bess Atwell – Big Blue

Post by Misha

There is so much barely thawed beauty in these songs. They emerge softly from a watery and clear place, not without pain and not without tenderness. Like walking for hours to reach a glacier just to understand the vast importance of it; like the crystalline pool that lay cupped between smooth, sun soaked boulders at its feet.

Like water so clear it had to be touched to be believed. I waded in and it sent needles through me, pulled every inch of skin tight and pressed lung and muscle in on itself. My spine was scrubbed clean; I felt sure that if I stayed too long I would be turned to marble and left to watch the sky pass over the water for eternity. (Not the worst destiny to wind up with, I suppose.)

Like emerging new onto a smooth outcropping of stone. Like filling up two palms and letting a revelation shock its way down my neck one final time before laying back, still and warm in recline. Like resting against the chest of an ancient god.

Big Blue is cold but not frozen. It is in some stage of being made liquid, trickling in the afternoon light. Its depths are deep but not murky, shimmering all the way down with perfect clear-eyed certainty.

Buy Big Blue on vinyl here, and stream on all platforms. Bess Atwell is currently doing a string of dates in the UK, find tickets here.