About
Phia Exiner is a composer, musician and songwriter of unusual breadth. Originally training as a jazz pianist, she 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.
Pick Me Up (Don’t Put Me Down) is the feature track from her upcoming third album, When I’m Holding You, I’m Holding Me. It showcases the world-class band at the heart of the album, recorded live with Exiner on piano, Tony Floyd (the Black Sorrows) on drums, Jonathan Zion (Deborah Conway, Lior) on double bass and featuring Gus Rigby (Fools) on saxophones/flute and produced with Nick Huggins (the Dirty Three). Pick Me Up is a slow burning meditation on the joy and grief new motherhood brings, the shedding of old identities and the tentative reaching to something new. and showcases Exiner’s jazz-trained origins with a Brad Mehldau-esque piano solo closing out the track.
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.
Videos
Tour
Melbourne Indie Voices
Melbourne Indie Voices is a new breed of community choir - non-traditional, frequently viral and thoroughly Australian.
Phia started MIV in February 2016 as a weekly drop-in night in her front room in Fitzroy, MIV has now grown to over 350 regular members spread over two nights.
Since forming in 2016 MIV has sold out the iconic Melbourne Forum Theatre twice, performed live on ABC 774, showcased at Melbourne Music Week 2016, and been featured on ABC News Online. MIV has performed onstage with iconic Australian artists Paul Kelly, Paul Dempsey (Something For Kate), Vika and Linda Bull, Ali Barter, Georgia Fields, Clare Bowditch and Jen Cloher.
Contact
Europe bookings
hagen@adamis.net
Australia
info@listentophia.com