Mixtape Review: Bessie Turner - 'arrabbiata'
Brimming with Indie-rock anthems, Bessie Turner captures in this album a whimsical lo-fi feeling that makes you want to run through fields of wheat barefoot, splash through shallow streams and smash things for aesthetic effect only… possibly in slo-mo. Turner’s career keeps going from strength to strength and this small but mighty album makes it obvious as to why. Recently taking a triumphant tour of the festival circuit which included stops at Latitude, Reading and Leeds and Lollapalooza, Bessie Turner’s sold-out shows are just a small nod to this Suffolk-born artist’s talent.
This mixtape’s bass-led, guitar-driven numbers married with Bessie’s floating melodies and decadent harmonies take a snapshot of rainy-day coffee mornings with a nostalgia older than Turner herself, and yet somehow still has the bright-eyed enthusiasm of youth. Each of the five tracks serve their individual purpose to curate this feeling of closeness with Bessie. By using voice overs, she tells a story, conjuring perfectly in one's head the moment you eye up someone, a lover, a friend, a stranger alike, walking into the room. She wonders in"Sugarman", the opener which comes in like a wind, rising into a lightly driven bass line, ‘how [he] takes [his] tea’. This resonates particularly strongly with me, partly because I'm inordinately fond of tea myself, but also because it is such a quintessentially British expression of love. Knowing someone’s tea order always seems to make them feel a little closer to you.
It's that theme of interpersonal relationships that Bessie’s lyrics surround in this album. Relationships as perceived by each other, as perceived by society and felt within your own soul. When The Horn Blows writer Lana Jade Williams summed up the single “It Was Nothing” perfectly, describing the song as ‘mature and raw’. I agree. The harmonic intricacy hovers over thundering drums, and a guitar and bassline in sync with a lighter chorus which gives the listener a moment to really hear what Bessie is trying to put across. Most of us have experienced the pain of seeing someone they thought was a friend walk away; it leaves you feeling crushed, and that lack of closure is embodied by Turner in this track, as she is constantly ‘trying to find peace and reason in a situation’, but she doesn’t shy away from that nastiness as embodied by the instrumentation.
Coming in with another bass-led bop, JUJU, this track is much more melancholic than the previous. The theme of lost relationships continues in the lyrics of JUJU, but whilst reflecting on that loss Turner acknowledges that ‘now I’m all alone and finally it feels so free’. This is the repeated message of this track, returning for each chorus as she masterfully takes the listener through past experiences, telling a story of a breakdown that is beyond the point of saving. This short but sweet heartbreak anthem is made fuller by Bessie’s soft melodies with trilling arpeggios leaping over the rhythmic, dead straight guitar chords help add to the catchiness of the song.
Aptly named, “Ciao Bella” opens with that stylistic straight guitar but this time in notes rather than chords. Bessie’s voice is showcased best at this moment as it comes soaring in indicating her immense ability and range. In this song she takes us to a restaurant, and sneaks the title in with seeing ‘Arrabiatta on the menu, but I’m not sure if I can handle spice [sic]’. In contrast to the previous few tracks, Turner keeps the instrumentation fairly sparse, building it up slowly to a resounding final minute. She lets the music take the lead here with a wonderful effect of layered and reverbed vocals making it sound almost ethereal before returning to the opening instruments and stripping the track back down for a calm and measured finish.
Bidding the listener “Ta-Rah”, this short outro track brings a sweet round out to this wonderful lyrically-thoughtful mixtape. Angelic melodies and light percussion fade out on a sunset of musical prowess. This underrated artist has a huge amount to offer the musical world, and we are so excited to see where she takes her career next.
Words by Mary Cooke
