Philippa Zang is a Pittsburgh singer-songwriter whose describes their songs as “post-apocalyptic tunes inviting you into the next present.”
Zang’s newly-released album Pothole Diaries is an eclectic mix of lo-fi recordings that displays an impressive amount of refinement for something likely produced in a bedroom somewhere; it holds to its own quirky vision while bouncing between drum machine-backed spoken word, DIY psych, and acoustic balladry. Zang’s own voice is one of the album’s standout features; it contains a warm, husky vulnerability that reminds me of Vagabon’s Laetita Tamko. “Monarch’s Wing,” the most affecting song on Pothole Diaries, opens with the poetically bleak image, “I think often of the needle that stole the breath from him/The dark room where he locked himself at night,” and continues on to fleeting images of flickering lights, harrow’s edges, and butterfly’s paths. It sounds like one of Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s delicate, wintry campfire tunes, all feathery guitar and close-mic’d, double-tracked vocals. “Monarch’s Wing” really is a beautiful song, and the rest of Pothole Diaries is worth checking out as well.
Listen to more from Philippa Zang
Bored In Pittsburgh 