Rising singer-songwriter and producer PHEA started singing in the back of her parents' car when she was really young, which led to her mother taking her to vocal lessons. Even though her parents don’t play any instruments, they were always very supportive and encouraged her sisters and herself to play multiple instruments. She started out with flute and cello. Later on, she took classical piano lessons and taught herself how to play a bit of guitar.
After she spent some time in the hospital at age 10, the American-German songstress began to write poetry and songs. PHEA would never show them to anyone, but they would help her process things and find comfort in art. Later on, she taught herself how to produce and she is currently studying music production. Next to her own music, she produces, writes, and composes for other artists as well commercial and film.
PHEA’s music journey transforms the painful and hopeless moments of her life into art. With her unique style of music, she drops deeply melodious grooves with meaningful lyrics that cast provocative light on human equality, PTSD, and sheer survival, inspired by her own rare heart condition.
PHEA’s music - unwound by her deeply messaged lyrics and bespoke soundscape - are the coalesced expression of her tumultuous life experiences. The self-written and produced, multi-layered tapestries she creates are simultaneously haunting and life-affirming. Her poetic lyricism evokes sounds of ancient folk traditions transported to modernity by a flying carpet of trip-hop-like beats, mercurially led by her synesthesia.
She’s always been attracted to music, finding comfort and herself through lyrics and production. She expresses that her most persistent influences and musical inspirations are Bon Iver and Radiohead. She gets inspired by different sounds and writing styles and loves listening to a lot of genres, so it is always changing. “This week I’ve been listening to James Blake. I love emotional music. Anything that provokes harsh feelings when listening,” PHEA comments.
Her debut extended-play, Healing Hearts, showcases PHEA’s strengths and weaknesses through powerful storytelling. Dealing with heavy topics, the layered journey will touch many listeners as the music is infused with her inspirational story as she dives into her experience with chronic illness over the five-tracks. The sonic experience is gripping in the mix of lyrics and words over the moving alternative pop extended-play. She’s vulnerable and raw from the get-go introduction of electric guitar, synths, and her beautiful vocals.
In the same way every story cannot be taken in, in one read, PHEA delicately portrays a multi-layered and complex story through her artistry creating an evoking mood to be reckoned with, challenged, and embraced on, Healing Hearts.
As PHEA wrote this project allowing her to make art from her physical and mental pain, she wanted to make something beautiful from this uncertain and uncontrollable time in her life. She wanted to take everything that seemed like a burden and made it into something that she loves and feels good about. “Whether it’s the aesthetics of my music videos that capture my body’s health journey as a medically defined “cyborg”. Or the sounds representing emotions such as anxiety and angst,” she comments.
PHEA expresses that emotions are important and that they are what keep us going. “Music lets us express and feel them in a way we don’t often allow ourselves to.” Her music is alternative pop with an electronic touch, since she doesn’t believe in having to stay with ‘one sound’ as an artist. “I’d say the most important thing about my style are my lyrics and vocals. For the production, I like creating sounds from scratch with different synthesizers until it fits the emotion I want to describe.”
“I don’t like to think of music having an agenda,” PHEA comments on what her mission as a music artist means to her. Although her extended-play deals with her heart condition, she would love to help create awareness for her disease called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, as it is rare and patients fatally go undiagnosed most of the time. But, her condition is not all that she is. “I’d like to think there is more to my art than one mission. I will always write and produce music for myself and others because it is what I love to do.” She likes speaking about what she believes in through her music. “I plan on exploring many different styles as an artist/producer/singer/songwriter and releasing more music soon,” she closes out the interview.