Emerging as a deeply personal single ‘Atlas’ chronicles Filiah’s journey through creative paralysis to artistic rebirth. Following her 2022 debut album For Someone, which earned critical praise but struggled to find its audience, Filiah found herself trapped in the exhausting cycle of self-management – from booking shows to handling her own PR. The weight of wearing every hat eventually crushed her creative spirit, leading to a complete musical shutdown. The turning point came unexpectedly on the Croatian coast, where welovemelodies, an artists‘ collective, invited her to a songwriting retreat. „Before writing ‚Atlas‘ I was on a 2-year hiatus from my own music,“ Filiah reveals. „I felt emotionally and physically exhausted, burnt out and going through a lot of changes and challenges in my personal life.“
Surrounded by fellow creators, Filiah found her voice again. The result is ‚Atlas‘ – a masterclass in turning pain into poetry. Here, her powerful vocals float over intricate indie-folk arrangements, while she crafts a meta-narrative about the very thing that silenced her. It’s a delicate balance of vulnerability and strength, where writer’s block becomes both subject and vanquished foe. In writing about what stopped her from writing, Filiah hasn’t just broken her silence – she’s transformed it into something beautiful. ‚Atlas‘ stands as both confession and triumph, marking the moment when a promising artist finds her feet again, this time with the support she’s long deserved.“It was inspired by feelings of self-doubt and the struggle to meet both personal and external expectation,“ explains Filiah. „It explores the feeling of thinking you’re never enough, wired all wrong and struggling to believe that someone will ever get you, while simultaneously wanting nothing more than just to be yourself.“
Filiah is an Austrian indie-folk artist whose music weaves together intimate storytelling with delicate arrangements that she describes as „indie folk with a glittery sparkle of pop.“ Her sound, drawing comparisons to Lizzy McAlpine, Maggie Rogers, and Orla Gartland, emerged from a childhood steeped in music. Raised by a music-loving single mother, Filiah’s earliest memories involve daily „carpool karaoke“ sessions during hour-long drives to school, where she would sing along to her mother’s diverse record collection before she could even understand the lyrics. These early morning concerts, featuring everything from Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie to Buena Vista Social Club and Diana Krall, became a sacred space where mother and daughter found joy during challenging times. Though naturally introverted, Filiah found her voice through music at an early age, putting on shows for her mother who would translate lyrics and encourage her creative expression. This foundation laid the groundwork for her eclectic musical journey, which evolved through a teenage obsession with Paramore (inspiring a string of experimental hair colors) to her current influences, including boygenius, Phoebe Bridgers, and St. Vincent. Through her music, Filiah aims to create the same sense of understanding and empowerment that she finds in her own musical influences, crafting songs that feel like „a little home where you’re understood and cared for.“
‘Atlas’ will be available across all streaming platforms from January 17th via Ink Music.