When pop singer Kimbra started working on her sophomore album, the just-released stunner The Golden Echo, she knew she needed to try something different.

“I really was craving some stillness after the madness of being on the road for so long and the whirlwind of my first record coming out in America,” she says. “ So, I needed to find somewhere to ground again and center myself to get back into the creative process.”

Kimbra on the farm

That place ended up being a farm right in Los Angeles.

 “It was a small, itty bitty farm that I literally found on Craigslist,” Kimbra says. “The landlady had an amount of land and instead of putting corn there, or whatever you’d usually do, she decided to bring in some sheep. There was about eight of them—they lived with their little lambs—and there was a rooster, and many chickens lying around and a sheep dog; it was quite a little family!” Indeed the animals were among the first to hear the songs that would become The Golden Echo.

Kimbra with farm animals

“I would come home and have this amazing little sanctuary,” she recalls. “There was sort of a little chaos about it, because the animals were all on their own trip, but it was a place I could really get away from everything.  I was writing there, and I would play my guitar out in the sun with the animals.” 

But all good things must come to an end, and Kimbra—having completed her record and begun preparations for a world tour—has packed up and left. 

Kimbra on the farm

“I just moved out,” she says. “I felt like when the record was done, it had played its part in my life, and I was ready to move on.  I don’t live far from there now, but I just decided that when the album was done, my time there was also done. Still, I miss it.”

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