From the first note to the last, Bess Atwell’s night at Oxford Art Factory was never about spectacle, it was something rawer, more tangible. No theatrics, no backing band, just three artists at their most unfiltered, pulling the audience into their worlds with little more than voice, melody, and presence.
Sarah Levins opened, her voice cutting through the hush like the soft beams of light on stage. There’s something magnetic about the way she crafts her sound – built in living rooms, layered with the voices of friends, and vast enough to fill a space like this. She shared beautiful anecdotes about her mum’s love letters, family and more, adding layer after layer of warmth to her set.
Ruby Gill followed, bringing a different kind of weight. There’s a wryness to her delivery, a knowingness that makes every lyric land harder. Seated with her guitar, she played like she was speaking directly to the room, her voice shifting between deadpan and deeply vulnerable, perhaps even more so under the haze of jet lag. She told a story about being caught in the eye of a cyclone, had the crowd laughing as she ran through her dad’s “funeral playlist”, then turned on a dime into ‘A Room Full of Human Male Politicians’ – a profoundly exciting piece set for her upcoming album.
Then came Bess Atwell, effortless in presence, like she was letting the songs breathe rather than pushing them forward. Performing tracks from her new album ‘Light Sleeper’, along with selections from ‘Already, Always’ (2021), she carried the crowd through waves of quiet intensity and swelling emotion. Her voice, rich and clear, felt almost otherworldly under the glow of the lights. You could see it in the way people stood so, so, still – no phones out, no distractions, just fully immersed.
The whole night felt like an oasis in the middle of a city that never stops, at a time when the ground shakes with bad news every hour. It was somewhere to sit solemnly and let it all settle, a really beautiful night.
