New Zealand musician Kimbra. Photo: Supplied
Grammy Award-winning musician Kimbra says there is a warrior at the heart of her new album.
Returning from New York to perform at the Synthony music festival, formerly Hamilton-based Kimbra spoke to Charlotte Ryan about A Reckoning.
She says the new album is both an invitation and a confrontation to see what is lurking within each of us.
"I found that when I learned to spend time in some of those more uncomfortable places, say talking about things with real honesty, it kind of opened the floodgates for me to then also experience such joy making the record, such power and freedom.
"Because I was learning to accept myself, and to accept all the things that are within me."
She said once she learnt to come out of that adversity - through grief and music, she discovered how powerful one can be, how resilient one can be to get back up again.
"I want that to be the overall takeaway. That there's a warrior at the heart of this record.
"There's a real… someone who's sat in those difficult spaces and emerged out of the other side with real strength and courage. But you can't go around it, you must go through it - that's what a reckoning is really about."
It's been 12 years since Kimbra gained global recognition with Gotye for their song 'Somebody That I Used To Know'.
Now after a five-year hiatus, she has once again collaborated with a global artist - Oscar nominee Ryan Lott, the producer-composer behind the original score of Oscar winning movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.
When asked why she chose to co-produce the album with Lott, Kimbra said she wanted to work with someone who would offer a perspective that she hadn't explored before.
"I liked the cinematic approach he had, and I liked the daring sounds that he could create, that felt explosive, cathartic, and I wanted to capture some of that energy on my album too.
"He was doing something that I thought would partner well with my approach, which is a little more, you know, catchy melody, R&B approach.
"So, it was more feeling that when we came together, we would create something unique because we had quite different sounds."
Kimbra will be performing over the weekend at the Synthony festival in Auckland now scheduled for Sunday.
Photo: Jayden Keoghan
