New LP from Stephanie Phillips

Pennsylvania-based singer-songwriter Stephanie Phillips has always used music as a way to explore the complicated emotions that make up a life. Coming out of West Chester, she began singing, playing guitar and writing songs at an early age, developing her own unique take on progressive folk music. Across her work, love and loss sit alongside hope and despair, with poignant lyrics that are personal while remaining attentive to the wider world. It’s music shaped by the understanding that life seldom offers one emotion at a time and that its most meaningful moments often arise from the spaces between opposing feelings.

Stephanie has carried that perspective onto stages across the United States, including performances at New York City venues such as the Village Gate and the Speakeasy. Her connection to the latter extended beyond the stage, with her music appearing on the Speakeasy’s Fast Folk album. Another defining moment came in the nineties, when she opened for Emmylou Harris, an experience that stands out among the highlights of her career.

Over the years, Stephanie has built an expansive catalogue through multiple singles and full-length records, allowing her songwriting and musical style to continue developing with time. Her progressive folk style gives her room to follow the emotional contours of a story, whether that means exploring the intimacy of personal relationships or confronting the social justice issues playing out in the nation and around the world. By not treating songwriting as an escape from reality, she uses it to engage with the difficult and often contradictory experiences that shape it.

Her latest album titled Walking the Tightrope brings that context into a particularly personal sphere; penned and recorded over a year and a half marked by profound emotional turbulence, the record formed during a period that held both devastating loss and the promise of a new beginning. The death of her younger brother coincided with the beginning of her marriage to her second husband, placing grief and joy side by side during a time of significant change.

Those experiences form the emotional backdrop of an album that captures what it means to move through difficult circumstances. Walking the Tightrope takes its shape from a life in motion, in which mourning and love are not mutually exclusive and where moments of happiness can exist alongside the impact of loss. The record becomes a space for those feelings to overlap and the title itself suggests the delicate balancing act that runs through the record, the effort required to keep moving when life pulls in different directions.

“Try As We Might” opens the record with soft the strums of clean guitar tones as Stephanie’s delicate voice enters to stitch tender melodic threads into the indie folk fabric. Building with the patter of percussion, the song glides with mellow rhythmic sway and memorable melodic leads, offering a charming musical moment that’s impossible not to love. “My Brother’s Shoes” flows with intricate plucked notes and fluttering vocals as gentle strings float around her dreamy voice, casting a moving folk scene brimming with poignant lyricism and alluring melodies.

Title track “Walking the Tightrope” leans into a stunning folk pop sound where laid back drums and bright instrumentation underpin an intricate blend of piano and guitar tones. Other highlights on the album include songs like “Possessions” with its flickering guitar notes and blissful vocal performance carrying picture painting lyrics, while “Autumn Hasn’t Had Its Ways’ arrives with bouncy rhythmic energy as shuffling drums and jangly guitar chords combine below Stephanie’s buoyant vocal leads, offering a catchy moment on the record.

With “One More Time,” the soothing swirl of soft guitar notes, graceful strings and tapped percussion forms a delightful arrangement as Stephanie’s enticing vocals dance above. Closing the album with “Study in Opposites,” the rustle of upbeat drums and bright guitar rhythms craft a lively backing for Stephanie’s playful vocals, offering an instantly memorable and energising finale to her super new full-length record. Walking the Tightrope stands as both a creative milestone and a form of emotional processing, with Stephanie Phillips transforming a period defined by grief, love and transition into a work shaped by honesty and reflection, finding a measure of steadiness by allowing the contradictions to be heard.

Listen to Walking the Tightrope below