Go Unlimited with Magzter GOLD
Get unlimited access to 10,000+ magazines, newspapers and Premium stories for just
Try GOLD - Free
Ready reckoning
New Zealand Listener
|February 18-24 2023
Kimbra's new collation and Silk Cut's arresting debut.
A RECKONING, by Kimbra
Pop may be mostly about instant gratification, but it can also be surprisingly enduring. Gotye and Kimbra’s Grammy-winning Somebody That I Used to Know is more than 10 years old, but her vocal as the emotional pivot remains compelling even now.
Somebody wasn’t the first, nor the last, recognition for her flexible voice and sophisticated songwriting (she’s won seven music awards in this country), but it gave her a platform and opportunities.
She used them to move further from the mainstream into ambitious art-pop on 2018’s Primal Heart, some of it influenced by trips to East Africa working with an organisation helping women and children with HIV.
At heart, she was still a pop artist, but of a more mature, less instant gratification kind.
Her fourth album, A Reckoning
This story is from the February 18-24 2023 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MORE STORIES FROM New Zealand Listener
New Zealand Listener
Down to earth diva
One of the great singers of our time, Joyce DiDonato is set to make her New Zealand debut with Berlioz.
8 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
Tamahori in his own words
Opening credits
5 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
Thought bubbles
Why do chewing gum and doodling help us concentrate?
3 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
The Don
Sir Donald McIntyre, 1934-2025
2 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
I'm a firestarter
Late spring is bonfire season out here in the sticks. It is the time of year when we rural types - even we half-baked, lily-livered ones who have washed up from the city - set fire to enormous piles of dead wood, felled trees and sundry vegetation that have been building up since last summer, or perhaps even the summer before.
2 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
Salary sticks
Most discussions around pay equity involve raising women's wages to the equivalent of men's. But there is an alternative.
3 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
THE NOSE KNOWS
A New Zealand innovation is clearing the air for hayfever sufferers and revolutionising the $30 billion global nasal decongestant market.
2 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
View from the hilltop
A classy Hawke's Bay syrah hits all the right notes to command a high price.
2 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
Speak easy
Much is still unknown about the causes of stuttering but researchers are making progress on its genetic origins.
3 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
New Zealand Listener
Recycling the family silver?
As election year looms, National is looking for ways to pay for its inevitable promises.
4 mins
29 November-December 5 2025
Translate
Change font size