Rising from the depths of Pennsylvania, Daffo makes music that is delicate and intimate, following in the footsteps of contemporary folk trailblazers like Big Thief in bringing the burgeoning style into a more mainstream market. The singer-songwriter has today announced themselves to the industry with “Poor Madeline”, a single plucked from a forthcoming EP, “Pest”.

The new offering is a quietly devastating and effortlessly encompassing cut that places the 19-year-old’s raw and expressive songwriting at front and centre. Provoking, stripped-back acoustic guitars are built on by light instrumentation, with Daffo’s hauntingly beautiful vocals complimenting the sonic palette perfectly. Merging folk tendencies with that of indie-rock, it’s a subtle and striking track that sets a very high bar for the artist’s upcoming body of work.

On the single, Daffo offers, “Poor Madeline” is about the loss of the feeling of home. I wrote it when I was 17, my parents sold my childhood home and I went off to boarding school. I ended up moving 6 times in the span of 9 months. I had nowhere to keep my things, because I never really had my own room, so I kept giving them away and leaving them at various friends and family members’ houses. When I wrote the song I kept thinking about the “Madeline” children books by Ludwig Bemelmans, where Madeline is at boarding school in Paris and gets appendicitis. At the time I was having these very intense stomach problems and panic attacks, and I kept thinking I had appendicitis, so I thought her name would be fitting for the song. Anyway I was a depressed teenager, still technically am, but now at least I find home within myself wherever I am.”

Stream “Poor Madeline”…