🎧 Approved: Westerman

Westerman, the project of Will Westerman, lives somewhere between folk and chamber pop; saint-like but playful in its textures. 

‘About Leaving’, the second single from his upcoming album ‘A Jackal’s Wedding’, leans into all of that with a soft power - sharp, cutting drums, and gentle piano and guitar that cradle his bassy choirboy vocals. It’s meticulously sculpted without ever feeling precious, the kind of track where every sound feels placed for maximum effect.

Written mostly in Athens and recorded on the Greek island of Hydra with Marta Salogni (Björk, The xx, Sampha), the song carries the weight of being a newcomer again and again, a sense of both dislocation and discovery. 

Westerman explains, “I have been in perpetual motion for a long time, and as I get older, I find it harder to carve out the amount of time needed to finish things all at once. This was one of those songs that I had in the back of my mind and I had the chorus but no other lyrics. I wrote the lyrics in different places: London, America and Greece. They were always written in a fleeting way, and that became an animating principle of what kind of imagery is contained”.

‘About Leaving’ is quietly commanding, a reminder of why Westerman is proving to be one of pop’s most subtle but exacting songwriters.

🎧Watch the video for ‘About Leaving’ below