Kimbra goes for gold

After making her big splash in the nuddy alongside Gotye with Somebody That I Used to Know, Kiwi alt-pop sensation Kimbra all but conquered the international pool of mega-stardom in the two years that followed.

The huge stroke of luck that was the hit 2011 multi-platinum single and its accompanying viral body-paint music video eventually scored the artist a Grammy Award. It also helped draw even more attention to her 2011 debut album Vows, which was later reworked for release in Europe and the US in 2012, coupled with relentless touring in-between.

The day after winning her Grammy last year, the singer/songwriter born Kimbra Lee Johnson relocated to LA for a distinct change of pace.

While scouring classifieds website Craigslist for a base while she worked on her second album, Kimbra found a hobby farm in the heart of the sprawling city. Located in the Silver Lake neighbourhood, the property also came with friendly neighbours - eight sheep (two of them lambs), three sheepdogs, 20 chickens and a rooster.

"It was just a place where I could get away and come home after the studio every night and sort of be in my own little world," Kimbra says over the phone from LA.

"I had an outdoor kitchen so I'd wake up in the morning with the rooster and be making eggs every morning with pots and pans that hung off the tree trunks. I'd cook outside and eat outside and sit with the sheep and it would just be very, very grounding."

When she wasn't enjoying her bucolic oasis, Kimbra was in co-producer Rich Costey's Eldorado Recording Studio in Burbank making her adventurous sophomore album The Golden Echo.

"I was like a kid in a playground," she says of the famed studio where Costey has produced albums for Muse, Foster the People, Franz Ferdinand and Philip Glass.

"He had a studio that had stacks of modular things and old vintage keyboards and things that I dream to be able to play around on and essentially he let me run wild.

"And then there was a point when you had to start to become thoughtful about what ended up on the final cut," Kimbra adds.

"But it's fantastic to be given that freedom to run wild with your imagination and I'm very grateful for that."

Costey's musical contacts were another goldmine. The Golden Echo features a diverse list of helpers, from Silverchair's Daniel Johns to soul singer Bilal, Muse guitarist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Thundercat, R&B star John Legend and string composer Van Dyke Parks, plus members of Queens of the Stone Age, the Mars Volta, the Dirty Projectors and Foster the People.

"It was very much about inviting them to be on this record, kind of like a role in a film," Kimbra says of the collaborations. "It wasn't so much about, like, a hip-hop album where you go 'This song is featuring this person'. It was more, like 'OK, I want to put some guitars on this track and instead of just getting a session musician I'd never met before to come in, why don't I call on one of my friends, or someone Rich has worked with that also happens to be someone that I really love?'

"Also, trying to throw something into the room that would be different, unexpected, because that's exciting to me. If it doesn't work, you've got nothing to lose. But if it does work you can break some new ground."

Kimbra's old mate Gotye also lent her a few gadgets to get creative with, which she combined with ProTools and iPad apps to build a tool kit of stimulating sounds.

"That's often how I'll get inspired writing - I'll find a sound that I'm like 'Oh my gosh, it sounds like nothing I've ever heard before'," she says.

The result is broad and ambitious, with traces of Prince, the Mars Volta, 70s R&B, 90s pop and almost everything in between.

"Whenever you move to a new country and surround yourself with a new palette of sounds and a new skills set you're obviously going to grow," Kimbra says.

"This has been such a huge year for kind of coming into my sense of self as a producer (and) just feeling so much more fearless about art.

"Part of being an artist is about feeling self-doubt at times but I climbed a lot of mountains making this record.

"To create your best work you have to get past the idea about the kind of musician you are and say 'You know what, I'm going to take away any restrictions and just jump into the unknown'," Kimbra says, "and that was really exciting."

The Golden Echo is released today.