Kimbra Challenging Musical Genres

Over the course of The Vine’s 20 minute telephone interview with Grammy winner New Zealand singer Kimbra, 24, her “voice changes shape, tone, and accent, like an opalescent sheen shifting in the light.”

“Like her music, it’s hard to pin down,” Jake Cleland writes for the publication.

“On her second album, The Golden Echo, it’s pretty clear the [Hamilton]-born Los Angeles transplant has no lack of ideas. Citing the 50 tracks she had for the album’s ‘A-list’ before boiling it down to the 12 on the album proper is only the beginning; the melodic and rhythmic acrobatics on each song as they traverse mood and genre make it a challenging first listen. But that’s not at all for the ill.

“[The first single from the album] ‘90s Music’ is pretty interesting. I think a lot of people didn’t quite know how to respond to it on first glance.” The Vine asks Kimbra if she is happy to create confusion.

“‘I think it’s interesting when art provokes conversation,” Kimbra says. ‘I think it’s interesting when art doesn’t fall into a perfectly labelled genre or idea. It then suggests a dialogue between people. That’s a good place to be releasing music from.’”

Kimbra’s The Golden Echo is out in the United States on 19 August.

Original article by Jake Cleland, The Vine, July 17, 2014.