The many faces of kiwi singer Kimbra. Photo / Thom Kerr
Bringing you our favourite features from 2014. If you missed them the first time around, now’s the perfect time to catch up. And remember to come back tomorrow for the next instalment.
Between writing music for Tim Burton, performing at festivals around the world and inspiring French designer Franck Sorbier, Kimbra has been working away on a new album influenced by Salvador Dali. Lydia Jenkin talks to the Hamilton-born star.
You're about as likely to find a simple term that describes the
personality of Kimbra Johnson as you are to find a single genre into which her music fits. In fact, if there is one characteristic that defines Kimbra, it's that she consistently defies categorisation.
Her chatter is peppered with enthusiastic exclamations of "dude" and "man", sporadic fist pumps, and the occasional Americanism. But she also speaks fluent French, and when a five minute break opens up during a day of press interviews for her new album, she's pulling a slim volume entitled The Sacrament Of The Present, by a 17th-century Jesuit priest, from her bag, for a moment of quiet and reflection.
She loves heavy rock like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mew, and The Mars Volta, as much as she loves the future soul sounds of Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus, or the old recordings of Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Michael Jackson and Prince. In fact, ask her about any genre and she'll likely school you on it pretty quickly.
