28 Oct 2018

Estère & Kimbra

From New Horizons, 5:00 pm on 28 October 2018

William Dart listens to new releases from two Kiwi songtresses.

Kimbra

Kimbra Photo: Warner Music

When I listen to Wellington singer/songwriter Estère, I can sense the lingering spirit of Prince (who ironically has just returned from the tomb, so to speak, with a collection of extremely acoustic solo piano songs).

Estère’s debut album, My Design, On Others’ Lives, is state-of-the-art designer funk with a Kiwi twist. There’s the feeling of it being polished almost to the point of pernickety.

The song with the nudgy title of "Pro Bono Techno Zone", has an agreeably witty exposition, but just before the two-minute mark, it becomes rather stuck in a groove.

I find myself relaxing a little more in her song, "Grandmother".

For a start, it’s very personal, written on the the death of her grandmother. And the singer tells us that she’s particularly proud to share her name, a name that means “morning star”.

But even here, perhaps a few explanations are necessary for those without access to lyric sheets — and you certainly don’t get those if you purchase an album through iTunes.

You’ll hear a backing refrain which may sound like vocalese. In fact, it’s in French, repeating the words “Appelez de la terre l’esprit de ma grand’mère” — a phrase that calls the spirit of her grandmother from the earth. And it’s not the only French that you’ll hear on Estère’s album . . . her French-domiciled father hails from Cameroon.

The flaunted cleverness of Estère’s songwriting inevitably reminds me of a young Hamilton woman who, in 2004, at the age of just 14,  was runner up in our country’s National Secondary School Songwriting Competition.

Kimbra Johnson shed her family name in 2011, and came up with her first album, Vows. It pressed buttons that folks wanted pressed at the time, and set her on an international upward spiral. I, for one, was totally bewitched by the ease with which this young woman played the style game in the album’s opening track, "Cameo Lover".

It’s a perfectly proportioned diadem of princess power pop, in which she’s valiantly coping with a recalcitrant lover, bubble-wrapped in what sounds like mother fixated baby love.

The best touches for those of us old enough to be the singer’s grandparents are the electro equivalent of those snappy pizzicatos that Norrie Paramor strung up behind the young Helen Shapiro.

When I got hold of Kimbra’s new album, Primal Heart, a few months ago, I was looking for songs that were relatively uncluttered with studio business and I found a heartening specimen in the ballad, "Version of Me".

Perhaps even the lyrics in what is essentially a love song also make oblique references to new controls being exercised, when she owns up to her predilection for throwing words around like fire.

There certainly are fires glimmering and glowing on the peripheries of the song, but an all-important keyboard, firmly centre-stage, is the perfect anchor.

Listen to these songs and several more by clicking the "Listen" button up above.

Music Details

'Song title' (Composer) – Performers
Album title
(Label)

'Pro Bono Techno Zone' (Estere) – Estere
My Design, On Others' Lives
(Estere)

'Grandmother' (Estere' (Estere
My Design, On Others' Lives
(Estere)

'It takes Time' (Johnson) – Kimbra Johnson
Play It Strange
(Play it Strange)

'Cameo Lover' (Johnson) – Kimbra
Vows
(Warner )

'The Build Up' (Johnson) – Kimbra
Vows
(Warner )

'Teen Heat' (Johnson) – Kimbra
The Golden Echo
(Warner)

'I'm Wishing' (Churchill/Morey) – Adriana Caselotti
Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(Buena Vista)

'I'm Wishing' (Churchill/Morey) – Kimbra
We Love Disney
(Universal)

'Version of Me' (Johnson) – Kimbra
Primal Heart
(Warner)

'If Only' (Teeks) – Teeks
The Grapefruit Skies
(Warner)

 

 

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