Phia Exiner Releases New Album When I'm Holding You I'm Holding Me

Phia Exiner today releases her third album When I'm Holding You I'm Holding Me. Recorded live with a world-class band, the recording features Exiner on piano, Tony Floyd (The Black Sorrows) on drums, Jonathan Zion (Deborah Conway, Lior) on double bass, Gus Rigby (Fools) on flute and saxophone, Harry Angus (The Cat Empire) on horns and woodwinds and produced by Nick Huggins (The Dirty Three).

Phia is a composer, musician and songwriter of unusual breadth and this is reflected within this album. When I'm Holding You, I'm Holding Me shows an artist confident in herself, where she is and where she's come from in her return to the piano, the instrument of her youth and the instrument her mother played to her. Written in the brief snatches of time when her son napped in the year after his birth, through sleep deprivation and the deepening understanding of herself as she grew into becoming a mother. The songs of When I'm Holding You, I'm Holding Me map this singular time, the slow unfurling of discovery, of her son and herself.

"My third album  was written in the year after my son's birth and the songs map this singular time, of discovering my son and rediscovering myself, and drawing on my formative piano influences of Brad Mehldau, Carole King and Bill Evans." Phia

How To Survive An Avalanche, is the fourth single and focus track of the album . This stunning song features Phia solo at the piano, and is her at her most honest and vulnerable. Highlighting her lyrical, classically-trained piano technique and her tender, heartbreaking vocals which weave a story of those early months of parenthood, broken sleep and finding herself in her new reality of motherhood with the avalanche of change.

"This song was written after a particularly bad night of sleep broken by breastfeeding. I read an interview with a mountain climber who had become an expert in avalanche rescues. Her advice was to not get caught up in the race, or the idea you had of how long it would take to reach the summit. The mountain is the boss. You have to surrender and know that you can't conquer the mountain and the weather through force of mind. This felt like such an incredible analogy for having a baby and adjusting to their rhythms. Ultimately you need to surrender to the force of nature that is your child. In some ways it feels like the opposite of everything I'd been adjusting my life to as an adult, being in control of my time and being the boss. And now I had to unlearn it, and allow myself to let go of control."  Phia

Originally training as a jazz pianist, Phia achieved a cult following during her time living in Europe with her unique use of the kalimba (thumb piano) accompanied by loop and effect pedals. Since returning to Melbourne, Australia she has founded and creatively directs 500 piece choir Melbourne Indie Voices as well as composing and arranging for film and television and releasing two albums under her own name. The thread which runs through all her work is her authentic and sincere voice, and playful and expert musicality.