Pisgah Unleashes New Track "Cumulonimbus" and Connects With Us to Reveal the Heart Behind the Storm
- STAFF
- Sep 18
- 7 min read
By: Staff
“Cumulonimbus” is an explosive, soul-stirring anthem that redefines atmospheric music with stunning depth.
A new, electrifying wave of sound is here. Pisgah’s latest track “Cumulonimbus” offers a storm of emotion, an atmospheric exploration that pulses with raw energy and haunting beauty. We spoke with the artist behind the storm to uncover the heart of this captivating song and the powerful journey that shaped it.
In our conversation, Pisgah opens up about the deeper layers within “Cumulonimbus” and how the track reflects a moment of intense self-reflection and transformation. The song, named after the towering cloud formation, taps into a sense of overwhelming clarity and generational trauma, a perfect storm of the personal and the universal.
From the isolation of lockdown to a hidden attic where the song was born, Pisgah shares the emotional and creative process that guided them. The words they chose, the emotions they channeled, and the space that birthed this track all speak to a larger narrative about confronting the inevitable and coming to terms with something much bigger than ourselves.
Through “Cumulonimbus,” Pisgah opens the door to Faultlines, their upcoming album, setting the stage for a sonic journey that’s as vulnerable as it is evocative. The artist speaks about the power of nature as a muse and how their Southern roots continue to influence their music even from across the Atlantic.
What’s next? After hearing the story behind “Cumulonimbus,” you’ll be left with more questions, and more anticipation. Get ready for a journey through sound, identity, and landscape.
The storm is just beginning, and Pisgah is ready to take you through it.
Here’s how it went:
Begin Interview:
Hello Pisgah, we’re thrilled to have you here for this interview! We've had an amazing time exploring your music and diving into your creative journey. Now, we’re even more intrigued to get a deeper look into both your brand and your personal and professional inspirations.
Q. What’s the heart of “Cumulonimbus” for you? What’s the raw, personal story you’re telling through this song, and how does the name itself, Cumulonimbus, capture that story for you?
A. I wrote ‘Cumulonimbus’ after having a dramatic fight with one of my parents, and not just any fight – one of those fights that’s so intense that it makes you question how your responses mirror theirs, makes you wonder what’s at the root of their reaction and, ultimately, how it influences the reactions you have that you always thought were unique to you. I’ve always been really interested in emotional legacies, and I think it’s because I come from a place that hasn’t honestly faced the truth of its exploitation and destruction of so many human lives through forced enslavement and genocide, so I’m always thinking about things in terms of the micro influence and the macro influence. Cumulonimbus clouds are thunderheads that grow heavier and heavier with rain, lightning, hail and high winds until they can’t hold any longer, and they’ve always been a powerful image of generational trauma to me for that reason. It’s the weight of accumulated experience that becomes so heavy in us that it explodes when you least expect it.
Q. The exercise of distilling your song down in Greta Morgan’s workshop sounds intense. How did you wrestle with cutting out parts of the song, and did anything surprising emerge once you stripped it back?
A. I’m a longwinded writer – always have been, always will be! – so I was really resistant to cutting anything from it initially because I was scared I’d lose something key to the story I’m trying to tell. But when I started thinking about the idea of revealing only a small percentage of a story so it gives listeners more space to step into the story with their own experiences, I gave myself the challenge of cutting it in half, with permission to go back to the full version if it just didn’t work. Thankfully it did! The bridge was originally an extended outro, but when I shifted the lines ‘I have your face but I wish I could recognise it…’ into the bridge I realised that’s where they needed to be all along. It’s the feeling that pushes the narrator into the final epiphany about how shame shapes our lives.
Q. You recorded in a hidden attic, isolated with only the birds and trees for company. How did that seclusion shape the way you channeled emotions into this song, did the space itself create a kind of magic for you?
A. It really did, mostly because it’s the first time in my life I’ve had a dedicated space to make music in, rather than just making it anywhere in the house I can find. I took time to decorate it, make it an external reflection of my interiority, and that makes all the difference to being able to get into a creative, open headspace pretty quickly when I’m up there.
Q. “Cumulonimbus” opens the door to Faultlines. How does this song set the stage for everything that follows on the album? What’s the vibe you want the listener to step into with it?
A. The title really does encapsulate what the album is about for me. My partner and I took a road trip around the southwestern states earlier in the summer and driving through states like New Mexico and Arizona, I was struck by how destructive processes like earthquakes and meteor strikes create such stunning landscapes. The re-shaping happens along and because of the fault line, and that made me think about the metaphorical fault lines that crop up in our lives – a break in a relationship, a tragedy, a crisis of faith – and how they reshape us. ‘Cumulonimbus’ felt like the perfect opener to explore that idea, and all the songs that follow continue the theme.
Q. Your childhood in North Carolina sounds so rich with inspiration. What’s one hidden or overlooked detail from the South that still finds its way into your music, even from across the pond?
A. I don’t know that this is overlooked by other people necessarily, but I definitely overlooked it when I lived there: southern landscapes are stunning in an understated way – wild, humid, full of life, overgrown, and haunted with heavy energies. Growing up there I thought it was incredibly boring-all strip malls, church steeples, fast food restaurants and dilapidated houses-and I overlooked the beauty of the landscape itself. Now I see the whole picture of the place, how the things that evidence human presence there are often so in tension with the wildness of the place, without erasing its wildness.
Q. The feeling of being a “southerner who has exiled herself from the south,” how does that tension manifest in your lyrics? Do you feel like you’re always writing toward a place you can’t go back to?
A. This is exactly it, because I also realize that even when I do go back or if I moved back it would be a completely different place than it was when I grew up there for all the reasons we learn as we age. Time passes, people die or leave, things move on without us. Not to mention the grip that far-right politics and evangelic religion, the latter of which I grew up in, have on many in that region of the country. There’s a legacy of artists being exiled from the places they come from and only being able to write about them once they leave them. I always think about how the writer James Joyce left Dublin and Ireland when he was only 22 and never moved back, but spent the rest of his life writing what were effectively love letters to his city. If anything, it shows that physical presence is only part of really loving a place. Sometimes we need the distance to love something more fully.
Q. The natural world is clearly a big inspiration for you, how does your environment shape the way you approach a song? Is there a moment when the landscape you’re in becomes a character in the music itself?
A. I’m a very visual person, so usually when I start writing a song I have an image of a landscape in my head that sets the emotional tone, and often the time and place, for the song to unfold from. With ‘Cumulonimbus’, the first line situates the song in a place with wide open vistas in the evening, when the sun is going down but its rays are still illuminating mountains and hills in the distance. For me, it’s an image that communicates that moment we’ve all had – at the end of a long day that hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to, exhausted from navigating our relationships and the energy of other people, and finally alone with enough time and space to think.
Q. Pisgah, we can't thank you enough for sharing these intimate details! So, what's next? Can you give us the inside scoop on your upcoming projects and what fans should be excited about? We'd love the readers to hear the news directly from you!
A. Thank you for having me and asking such thoughtful questions! The biggest news is definitely the album, which will be released on the 7th of November, but I am also releasing a couple more singles before it comes out. The first is a song called ‘Favor’, out on the 26th of September, and the second is a song called ‘Bend to Break’, out on the 17th of October. This is technically my second album but in some ways it feels like a debut because I didn’t share my first record widely, so I’m excited to have a whole collection of songs that really sound like me out in the world soon. The best way to keep track of them, and any future releases, is to follow me on Bandcamp and Spotify.
Pisgah, thank you so much, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us!
End Interview
We’re happy to have shared Pisgah’s exciting journey with you and uncovered such inspiring insights about their creative process.
