Settle In

Kimbra’s debut album followed the usual path to release: years of writing, demoing and making contacts and, of course, a trip to the Eureka Skydeck, where she stood suspended in a glass cube almost 300 metres above the Melbourne streets.

“I was forced into it,” the 21-year-old pop phenom laughs. “My producer (Franc Tetaz) made me. I didn't want to. He just said, 'you need to write some more lyrics for this song, so I think you need to face your fears and go up to the Eureka Skydeck’.

“I was like, 'are you kidding? I'm not going up there by myself and standing on a piece of glass,' but he said, 'well, you know, I think this is just what you need’. So I did it and I was overcome by some sort of revelation. I felt quite a moment of epiphany and started to write these lyrics questioning my existence… it's been a recurring theme throughout the album, getting out of the comfort zone and trying something new.”

She's not kidding. Her first venture outside her comfort zone came when she was 17. Industry figure Mark Richardson offered the New Zealand-born singer a management deal with one condition: she had to leave her home in Hamilton and move to Melbourne. It's no surprise, then, that debut album 'Vows' finds her grappling with themes of commitment. 

“Vows don't always have to be romantic promises,” she explains. “It doesn't mean that at all on the album. Vows can be spiritual; they can be vows you make to other people or vows you make to yourself. It's about making promises and deciding what you will commit yourself to.

“The most serious commitment I've made has probably been this album, to be honest with you… it's kind of prophetic in a way. It's come full circle. Now I've accomplished something I made a promise to do, I've finished this album.”

From the outside, it might seem like Kimbra was left to sit on a shelf for four years (especially considering debut single 'Settle Down', which took out top honours in the International Songwriting Competition, was written when she was 16). But she's been constantly working and evolving in that time.

“I put out quite a bit of stuff back in New Zealand and it sounded quite different. It had some of the same influences, but for the most part it was more acoustic folk stuff. I think I was still finding something original; I wasn't sure of my direction. Who really is at 16?

“I think I needed that time to mature and go through a few things. There's only so much a kid in New Zealand can go through. You need to get out of your comfort zone and experience relationships, experience your own journey. Looking back, I am glad I took the time.”

One relationship she developed was with producer Tetaz (Architecture In Helsinki, Bertie Blackman, Gotye). When not daring her to conquer her fear of heights for the sake of a few lines on an album track ('Wandering Limbs'), he was teaching her to think of her songs as chapters in a film.
“I had quite a clear idea of how I wanted the songs to be portrayed visually, even when I was writing them,” she says. “That's something Franc taught me… it helps you to clarify your message if you think of it visually. When I worked with Guy Franklin, the director for all three of my video clips, we would sit down together and I'd tell him my idea and he would help to intensify that idea and make it that bit more provocative.”

It was Tetaz who suggested Kimbra to Gotye for the guest verse on his massively popular single, 'Somebody That I Used To Know'. But he didn't stick around for the duration of the album.
“(Franc) was quite crucial for helping me develop the first half of the album,” Kimbra says, “but I also did a lot of it at home and with another producer called M-Phazes … There's always a push and pull between artist and producer. I think that's a healthy tension. You need that. If you agreed on everything, then you wouldn't really be challenging each other, would you?
“There were parts of the album where I felt like I needed a different influence, and that's where I went to M-Phazes.”

An ARIA winning producer known for his work with the likes of Pharoahe Monch, Talib Kweli, Bliss N Eso, Phrase, Drapht and Spit Syndicate, M-Phazes isn't an obvious go-to guy for an aspiring pop chanteuse. What was that thing about comfort zones again?

“Obviously his background's in hip hop, so his emphasis is on the drums,” Kimbra says, explaining the unorthodox choice. “There were a couple of songs, 'Settle Down' was actually one of them, that he put a new drumbeat on… it just gave it this new aggression and punch. That's really what he added to some of the songs; he just put a little more emphasis on the bottom end whereas a pop or indie producer wouldn't necessarily focus on that.”

If the last few tracks she recorded for the album are any indication, however, she might have outgrown both producers' influence already. 'Limbo', a skittering, multi-layered slice of bizarro pop weirdness, is all Kimbra.

“That's one of my favourites on the album, so I'm glad you like it,” she laughs. “That was one of the more recent ones that was written for the album, so it's probably the direction I'm starting to go more towards now. I'd been listening to a lot of music like The Dirty Projectors and tUnE-yArDs, bands with a really strong percussive element. When I was writing that song, I jumped on lots of percussive instruments and was just slamming them against my desk.

“I had lots of fun completely putting it together at home. It was my chance to indulge. I got the chance to just layer and layer and layer lots of different sounds and test out my production skills. I'm still learning with that whole realm, but it was exciting for me to put something like that together myself. It's really exciting to listen to, I think.
“I love music that's always introducing new sounds and new rhythms, so I wanted to have at least one song on the album that was a little kooky like that.”

After all this, then, is she any closer to answering the question she asked herself on the Skydeck? It's the question she asks herself on 'Wandering Limbs', the track that resulted from that experience:  'Am I caught in the background? Or am I part of the scene?'

“That line's about whether or not we're accidents or whether our lives have purpose,” she reveals. “It's kind of a paradox, you know? I think it's a bit of both. I'm still finding my place with all of that. That's a whole 'nother conversation!”

Kimbra plays The Courier-Mail Spiegeltent - as part of the Brisbane Festival - Friday September 23. also catch her at Parklife, at the Brisbane Riverstage and City Botanic Gardends, Saturday October 1. ‘Vows’ is out now.