Interview: Grammy-award winning artist Kimbra: ‘Listen deeper to the world around you’

She may have come through the public radar when Gotye’s “Somebody That I used To Know” became 2011’s worldwide hit song. A subheading “feat. Kimbra” that usually connotes a smaller role. But as it turns out, upon clicking several of her music videos on Youtube, Kimbra was already a huge name in the independent music scene in Australia, with a number of impressive songs under her belt, and with a style so different from the song she collaborated with Gotye.  

 

Some music writers call it “jazz-inspired electro-pop”, with a hint of R&B and soul. In her interviews, Kimbra said she doesn’t want her music to be boxed, perhaps because it’s as eclectic as her musical influences that range from Prince, Bjork, Marvin Gaye, Jeck Buckley, Minnie Riperton to Earth, Wind and Fire. One only has to listen to her songs from her first album like “Cameo Lover,” “Settle Down” and “Good Intent” to understand why. 

 

But one thing’s for sure: this Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, even with her flouncy skirts and sparkling tops, is not your usual pop star. And now, after launching her second album “The Golden Echo” last August, Kimbra has come to the Philippines for the first time to headline local cable channel Jack TV’s MAD Fest concert

 

She sat down with GMA News Online for a quick chat and talked about dreaming of her album title, her view of social media, her fascination for layering voices, and how they come up with powerful music videos. 

 

Q: I personally felt that the song “Settle Down” was a very powerful song. What drove you to write it?

 

A: it was actually a bit of an experiment. I actually borrowed an 8-track recorder from a high school music room. And it has these big faders on it, knobs that you could push up and down for each track you recorded your voice and I was fascinated with layering my voice doing a little sort of barber shop type a cappella songs. So it was all down to the voice, beat-boxing on it. But it was more of an experiment just to try out this piece of gear. And I played it to the producer who worked on my first album "Vows," and he just thought “wow, there is something to this.” Something that started as a bit of a joke became a profound message about a woman who has these desires to have a very stable, normal life. But I also wanted to challenge that idea for a woman, you know, this idea of perfection of getting married. Is that necessarily healthy for us? You know, I wanted to just play with that idea. 

 

Q: Let’s go to your second album, “The Golden Echo”, which, as what you revealed in your previous interviews, you actually dreamed about. You talked about how this is relevant to our day and age, living constantly with projections of the self every day. Is “The Golden Echo” in any way related to your experience of being catapulted to the limelight with the success of “Somebody That I Used to Know”?

 

A: I was led to the story Greek mythology about a narcissist about a young boy who only sees himself in the reflection in the water. And it reminded me of our day and age when all we see is ourselves in social media and for me, I’d seen so much of myself everywhere as well. It can lead you to want to look outwards to want to find answers, like a sense of transcendence. The record is kind of about being led to listen deeper to the world around you, look closer at things. "The Golden Echo" requires you to be quiet to hear it and it was almost this sound that I was following when I was making the record, an adventure to the imagination. And how to it feels to live inside your self, and then also to be outside of yourself. And it’s something that I think about at this day and age, that we need something to hold on to—the ability to pay attention to things, to listen to a piece of music multiple times and hear new things and don’t become a culture that’s only embracing things for 5 seconds. 

 

Q: You were in the indie scene and you crossed over to the mainstream. How was the transition for you? 

 

A: It’s been good. I’m very thankful that now I’m able to share my music with a wider audience. And introduce my fans, who has been only listening to certain kinds of music, to the kind of stuff that I listen to. That’s really exciting for me, you know. It’s a different world but it’s really amazing that it now takes me to places like the Philippines.   

 

Q: Can you walk me through the process of how your music videos are visualized by you and your director? 

 

A: A lot of the early videos I made with Guy Franklin who is more of a guy from the film world, so he’s very interested in the storyline. Every detail and the clip being part of the story, we start with the lyric of the song obviously. But we always try to find a twist to it—not just telling it, but trying to show the song in a new way for people. And maybe give them a different way of seeing the song. Like for "Settle Down," the dolls burning down, it’s always symbolic. But I want to leave that for people to interpret themselves. And it’s just a chance to be imaginative as well. — VC, GMA News

 

Catch Kimbra at the MAD Fest 2014 at the SM Mall of Asia concert grounds, Block 12 on December 5, from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m.