Count it in Moons

Record Details

Artist
Heather Miller
Release
2023
Genre
Folk
Heather Miller stands in the Chinati desert of West Texas. She is wearing an ombre dress that goes from purple to magenta and is covered with small white stars. She is wearing short red cowgirl boots and has an arm outstretched to the sky. A large full moon takes up much of the horizon behind her.

Record Links

Record Tracklist

  1. -:-- / 3:15
  2. -:-- / 2:21
  3. -:-- / 3:24
  4. -:-- / 3:02
  5. -:-- / 2:57
  6. -:-- / 4:36
  7. -:-- / 3:45
  8. -:-- / 2:40
  9. -:-- / 2:35
  10. -:-- / 3:23

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.”

RADIO PROMOTION by Art Menius Radio
art@artmenius.com artmeniusradio.com

Thank yous
Infinite and eternal thanks to everyone who made this album happen: Mom, Jana, Shawnee, Nichole, Terri, Carolyn, Hope & the Dreamers, Daisy, Ana Bee, Whalen, the NeWorlDeli open mic, My Dear Patrons, all the beautiful Kickstarter Backers, Soulwriter University, Ellis & the Feeling it Fridays crew, Brenda, My Goddess Girls, Lydia’s Moon Circles, Mandy and everyone at Girl Guitar, Johann and the Crooked Crow folks, my Kerrville Folk Festival friends, Cheryl B. Engelhardt and Amplify (my PUPmates especially!) Dan, Dad, Donna, Jeffrey, Lindsey, Emily, all the pets I co-wrote with and their parents who trusted me to take care of them. You! If you read this far you care and that means you’re part of the village!

KM, thank you for your infinite patience, your talent, listening, and encouragement, and for taking these little songs I made up and turning them into not only something real, but better than I could have imagined!

credits
released September 29, 2023

The players:

Heather: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Katie Marie: Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar,
Drums, Percussion, Harmonies
Jana Pochop: Electric Guitar
Shawnee Kilgore: Harmonies
Sweet Gary: Electric Guitar, Pedal Steel
Chris Gebhard: Keys
Lindsey Verrill: Cello

Produced and mixed by Katie Marie
Mastered by Isha Erskine at Mad Scientist Studio
Recorded in everyone’s home studios in & around Austin

All songs written by Heather Miller
Copyright 2023 ASCAP Heather Miller, Purplemoor Music

Photos by Nichole Wagner & Heather Miller
Design by Emily Shirley