Brooke Fraser takes listeners on road-trip

Brooke Fraser doesn't like labels and being pigeonholed. Faith still plays an important role in the 26-year-old singer's life, but she doesn't see herself as a Christian singer and she's certainly not one who likes to preach.
On her new album, Flags, she takes listeners on a road-trip and lets them look over her shoulder as she travels the world and meets friends and strangers.
And if it's true, like she once said, that music and food have a lot in common, Flags tastes much more like American pie than pavlova.
"I spent a lot of time in America and consequently - or at least to my mind when I think of the songs, and I think of the places where they began, or the ideas that inspired them - a lot of them take place in America," she says.
Along the way it's up to everybody to decide for themselves if they're listening to a hymn or an encouraging tale packed into a charming pop song.
It's seven years since Fraser, the oldest daughter of All Black Bernie Fraser, shot to fame with her first album, What to do with Daylight, in 2003.
The following year, at 20, she moved to Sydney to escape the hype, then spent years touring New Zealand, Europe and the United States. Two years ago she married fellow musician Scott Ligertwood.
On her first two albums the sweet love songs were foremost addressed to God - these days you can't be sure. There's at least one song on the album dedicated to her husband.
"There's a song called Sailboats, which I wrote one time when he went to the grocery store and he asked me to write him a song while he was away. So, I said 'Okay, here you go, I made you a song'."
After all her years in the music business Fraser is still driven by the same ambition.
"No matter what songs I am writing, the aim is always to bring a little bit of hope or solace to people and that can look and sound in a lot of different ways," she says.
This time around the songs took a while to form in her mind.
"I think I was tempted to think that I was pretty burned out for a while and the last thing I wanted to imagine was getting up on the stage again.
"But music isn't something that I ever consciously chose - it chose me and it always has been my default method of expression as long as I can remember.
Her last album was mainly inspired by her work with relief organisation World Vision in Rwanda and named for Albertine, who was orphaned by the Rwandan genocide.
"The last time I was in Rwanda and met Albertine was in 2007 and she's a grown woman now, she'll be almost 20, but we have lost touch ... but as far as we know she's well."
For Flags the songwriter took on the role of producer for the first time.
"It was just such an exhilarating challenge and there were times when it was quite frightening, if we were going somewhere and I wanted to go in a different direction and I had to figure out how to change techniques to get somewhere else," she says.
The hardest parts were not having somebody to bounce ideas off and working with a very tight deadline.
"There are still things that I wish I could alter just slightly, but I think one of things special about the album is that it is so raw and so honest and really captures a moment in time," she says.
Recording the album gave her back an appetite for touring.
"I am really excited about it and it is a relief to have three albums to pull from for a tour.
"I remember the first time when I released an album and I was touring and they were telling me that I had to play for one and a half hours but I only had 45 minutes' worth of songs so what would I do for the last half an hour, so I just talked a lot.
"This time around I will still be blubbing on as I usually do, but this time I don't need to do that as much, so there will be a lot more music and more balance to the show.
"There are a lot more happy songs on this record, so it's a great balance to my older material.
"I am a bit nervous but mainly just excited to play in New Zealand again - it's been a little while."