Heather Miller - Count it in Moons (2023) Hi Res

Heather Miller's debut full-length album, Count It in Moons, arrives as a testament to her personal journey of self-discovery and embracing her truest self. It explores a transformative period that followed divorce and relocation. “Even though I was aware my marriage was on shaky ground some time before the end,” she says, “there was still an element of shock the day we decided to call it quits. It was challenging to hold the juxtaposition between the pain of loss and the expansiveness that came from the newfound freedom of being single.”

In 2015 Heather headed southwest from her native Iowa for Austin without job or plan, heartbroken from the amicable dissolution of her marriage. “I had a few hundred dollars to my name, only the deep knowing in my body that I had to be in a city saturated with music for my own health and happiness,” she recalls. She picked Austin because the former DJ had spent a magical year there that had included 157 open mic appearances and resulted in her debut EP, 2012's Anchor. “I found a job and a place to live. I took lessons at Girl Guitar where I met some great friends and got opportunities to play a lot of cool stages. I joined a songwriting group where we wrote a song a week to a prompt, and I met a woman who held monthly ceremonies every new moon where we meditated, journaled, spoke our goals, growth, and the things we wanted to release. Bit by bit I built a life I was proud of, not perfect, but one that felt more and more like me.”

By 2019, she felt grounded enough to release a holiday EP, Ornaments & Memories, followed by a live on the radio recording, Heather Miller Live at KOOP in 2020. Miller was full of plans and energy for her first full length recording studio album. Then came the pandemic. “Once again, I stumbled a lot. But I kept getting up, taking one step at a time, and moving forward. Those steps eventually added up to Count it in Moons. I named it after a line in my song ‘The Color Blue’ that references those moon ceremonies that got me through my initial couple years back in Austin. It was recorded bits and pieces at a time over a couple of years by a team of mostly women and a few great men, in home studios all around Austin. Produced by Katie Marie (Sophie B. Hawkins, Ruthie Foster), players include Sweet Gary Newcomb, Jana Pochop, Shawnee Kilgore, Lindsey Verrill (Little Mazarn), and Chris Gebhard (Fastball). Grammy Winning engineer Isha Irskine mastered Count It In Moons.

“I’m proud of these 10 songs that run the gamut of nostalgia, loss, compassion, growth, and healing. I hope they will bring you a sense of companionship and heartbalm. I’m finally ready to put them out into the world.”