Sometimes a change of scenery does more than give a songwriter somewhere new to work. For Bess Atwell, nine months in Quebec became the starting point for Cut A Figure, her fourth album, due on 5 February 2027 via Nettwerk.

The British singer-songwriter has announced the record alongside new single ‘Glass’, a song that gets to the heart of the album’s central question: what happens when the desire to be understood leaves you feeling less visible?

Leaving familiar ground behind

Following 2024’s Light Sleeper, produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner, Atwell made a spontaneous move to Canada. She spent nine months living in Quebec, a period that helped shape a record concerned with relationships, difficult emotions and the ways we see ourselves.

Rather than presenting that move as an easy reinvention, Cut A Figure appears to examine the less comfortable side of change. The announced songs explore anger, vulnerability and the complicated business of finding your own voice. It’s an intriguing direction for an artist whose writing has often found its power in restraint.

‘Glass’ and the meaning behind the title

Atwell says the album’s title comes from a line in ‘Glass’. Explaining its meaning, she recalled a personality exercise from her teenage years in which she imagined a transparent box while others pictured more solid, colourful objects. That image stayed with her: the idea that revealing everything about yourself can, paradoxically, make you feel invisible.

The single arrives with a video and follows the previously released ‘The Act’. Together, they offer the first indications of where this next chapter might lead, though the full album will have to speak for itself when it arrives in February.

A new production partnership

This time Atwell worked with producer Chris Coady at his studio in Glendale, California. His credits include Beach House, Future Islands, Foals and DIIV. It’s a notable change of collaborator after Light Sleeper, and one that makes the album’s sonic direction particularly interesting.

Coady’s connection to DIIV also links this announcement to another artist we’ve been following: our recent coverage of DIIV’s new single and 2027 UK dates. Different artists, certainly, but a reminder of how producers can move between the quieter and more expansive corners of alternative music.

UK dates confirmed for 2027

Atwell will play Glasgow’s Tramway on 28 January and The Crossing in Birmingham on 31 January, before a London album-launch show at the Barbican on 6 February. Further UK and Ireland dates follow in April, with stops including Birkenhead, Leeds, Gateshead, Manchester, Belfast, Dublin, Nottingham and Bristol.

For Imminent Infinity, the appeal here isn’t simply another release date to put in the diary. It’s the possibility of hearing how distance, discomfort and a different creative partnership have altered Atwell’s songwriting. Cut A Figure sounds like an album worth returning to when we can hear the whole thing.

Cut A Figure is released on 5 February 2027 via Nettwerk. Tour information is available from Bess Atwell’s official website.

Sources: The Line of Best Fit; Barbican.