Bess Atwell

"You called yourself broken, but that's just what people are, that's how the light gets in," sings Bess Atwell in the opening moments of Light Sleeper, before gentle hums of strings and shuffling snares make way for the Brighton singer's voice at full pelt, singing with a newfound rawness.

"Light Sleeper is about the willingness to feel," the Brighton singer-songwriter explains. "Somewhere along the line I had become very afraid of feeling."

A huge part of this exploratory new era was Aaron Dessner, who produced Light Sleeper. His isolated cabin studio Long Pond, in Hudson Valley, was once Bess' desktop background, but she never thought she would end up star-gazing on its veranda and noodling away on the same instruments used by her heroes, not to mention a certain pop star...