Following two striking singles ‘Favor’ and ‘Bend To Break’, the North Carolina–born, UK-based songwriter Pisgah (aka Brittney Jenkins) has released her unmissable sophomore album, Faultlines. Since this project first came into being in 2021, Jenkins has been exploring her American storytelling roots while also pulling in a distinctively British post-punk edge; this sensitive yet gritty sound comes together with a seamless ease in this seven-track record. It’s a stylistic choice that perfectly serves the theme at the heart of Faultlines, that of catastrophe as a catalyst for transformation, whether that’s in the context of projected identity, family relationships or the self. Written and recorded largely at home, the album has an undeniably intimate feel, yet it doesn’t lose any of that raw power either. We wanted to dig deeper into this confessional album, and so for On The Record, Jenkins sat down with us to discuss overcoming imposter syndrome, learning to trust her voice, and embracing emotional honesty without self-censorship.
Welcome to Unrecorded! For those who aren’t already familiar with Pisgah, can you introduce yourself?
Of course! My name’s Brittney and I’ve been releasing songs under Pisgah since 2021. I grew up in North Carolina in the U.S., which is in the South, but now I live in the UK, in a wonky little cottage in a village outside of London. I’m really long-winded and have no elevator pitch skills, but if I had to describe my music in one phrase I’d say: Americana-inspired alt-rock with post punk glimmers for melancholics.
Congratulations on the recent release of your LP, Faultlines! The title suggests instability but also inevitability, so when did that metaphor first become central to the album?
I love what you say about instability and inevitability. Those words feel so true to me about every song on the record, and I appreciate that you picked up on them. So that’s all to say, I knew when I was working on them that the loose concept for the record was ‘catastrophe’, but the title didn’t hit me until I was driving through the desert in Northern Arizona on the way into Utah and looking at this expansive, craggy landscape that’s beyond words. I can’t even begin to do it justice. But it got me thinking about how often destruction is a prerequisite for beauty, and that got me thinking about fault lines.
How has your sound and songwriting evolved since your debut album?
I think it’s become a lot more confident because I finally see myself as a songwriter and a musician. I was battling a lot of imposter syndrome and not feeling like a ‘real musician’ when I was making the first record, so I wasn’t in the right space to figure out exactly what I wanted Pisgah to sound like. Making an album is also such a daunting undertaking that I was exerting all my energy just trying to figure out how to do it, rather than thinking about its sonic identity and landscape. With Faultlines I was able to fully realise the sound I’ve had in my head, and I’m really proud of that. I also think it’s a step up lyrically because I trusted myself to say what I needed to say, rather than trying to censor or soften myself.
Natural disasters and apocalyptic imagery appear throughout the album, such as storms, plane crashes and seismic shifts. Why do those images resonate so strongly in your writing?
I think this connects to what I said about destruction being a prerequisite for beauty. I genuinely believe that we can’t transform into who we’re meant to be without going through hard things and alchemising them. Natural and manmade disasters are effective metaphors for the fulcrum point where nothing will ever be the same again, and it’s in that space that the magic happens.
How do you decide how much emotion and personal details to reveal in tracks like ‘Favor’ and ‘Bone to Pick’?
I try not to censor myself now, so I start by just letting everything out on the page and then I ask myself if what’s there is what I really wanted to say when I start revising. I’m one of those people who wants to go into the deepest conversation possible right from the start, and I feel that way in my songwriting, too. If it doesn’t feel emotionally true to me then it doesn’t feel right to me. Every song is different, but I try to strike a balance between being brutally honest where I need to be but not being so specific that who I’m singing about is immediately identifiable (unless you’ve known me for a long time, and then it’s probably easier to figure out!). ‘Bone to Pick’ is an interesting example of this because that’s wholly my story of coming to understand that I was sexually assaulted, and I wanted the song to feel like a slow revelation in the same way that I experienced it. I could’ve been a lot more explicit throughout, but I felt like it worked better to let it build slowly so I could drop the metaphorical bomb at the end.
‘Bend to Break’ centres on reclaiming agency and becoming your own main character, so was that realisation difficult or liberating to articulate?
This song was incredibly liberating to write once it came, and it’s one of the songs on the album that I’m proudest of lyrically because it really captures that moment of inertia between the collapse and freedom. I wrote it about my parents’ divorce, which happened when I was thirteen, but only later realised it’s about me, too, and my decision to put an ocean between myself and where I’m from so I could become who I’m meant to be rather than what my family wanted me to be.
Can you think of a particular challenge you had to overcome while writing the album?
The biggest one was my technical recording knowledge! I had recorded at home before, of course, but I really wanted to learn how to record at home as well as I could, so I invested a lot of time in learning Logic Pro inside-out. I also spent a lot of time learning mixing techniques so I could understand what the songs needed, even before I sent them off for professional mixing and mastering. It was a huge learning curve, but now I feel a lot more confident!
Which song do you enjoy playing live the most?
It changes all the time, but right now it’s probably ‘Bend to Break’ because anytime I play it live, no matter what else is going on, the room goes quiet. I love that I can bring people to attention with music in an age of chaos and distraction, and am so grateful that my favorite musicians can do that for me, too.
What do you hope that listeners will take away from Faultlines?
That catastrophe is a doorway to becoming more fully ourselves, if we’re willing to step into it eyes wide open.
Following the release of the album, what will be next on the horizon for you?
I’m already working on new songs and, while I don’t want to rush getting LP 3 out just to do it, I am looking forward to moving into the next body of work. Before I do that, I have a few demos I recorded for Faultlines that didn’t make the final album but they feel like part of the world of it, if that makes sense, so I’m planning to release an extended version later this year with them included. I’d also really love to record new versions of some of the songs from my first album now that I have a much clearer idea of I want to sound like, so I may do that, too.
As far as the way forward sonically, I really want to build on the sound that came out in ‘Splintering’. It has an edge and grit that I’d like to move toward, so we’ll see where that takes me!
You can listen to album track ‘Splintering’ in our Indie Rockers playlist.
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