AMAZING THINGS PRODUCED BY NEW ZEALAND #56 - BROOKE FRASER

It was back in 2006 when I discovered Brooke Fraser. The Australian iTunes Genius function had suggested I listen to her as an artist due to some similarities in my current music collection (which to be honest, could have been totally random/odd as my music collection consists of 115GB or 53 days worth of music - apparently iTunes tells me).

I took a punt and downloaded her then current album, Albertine, and literally fell in love.

 Brooke is a 26 year old Kiwi, singer/song-writer, and daughter of former All Black Bernie Fraser. Albertine was the follow up to her 2003 debut album What To Do With Daylight, which was written/produced after Brooke's trip to Rwanda with World Vision. It is there where she met the orphaned namesake for this album, Albertine.

Little did I know the album would be one of the most played albums in my music collection ever. It produced the singles Deciphering Me, Shadowfeet, Albertine and CS Lewis Song - the latter being one of my all time favourites.

Whilst I loved the album after purchasing it, it wasn't really until seeing her outstanding performance at Sydney's Enmore Theatre that it really sealed the deal. The acoustics, her humour, her humbleness and the rendition of the Simon & Garfunkel classic The Sound of Silence... still to this day it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to.

I took the time to then indulge in her debut album which is also a winner, a little rougher 'round the edges, but the track Arithmetic is pure song-writing heaven.

So, as you can imagine I've been patiently waiting for new music to surface. Brooke has been working, locked up in Los Angeles since February '10, however not long now as the new album, Flags, is released in New Zealand, Australia and the US in October '10. The lead track from the album, Something in the Water, was released locally last month and the video is below.

Personally, I just can't wait. Do yourself a favour and take some time out to listen to the brilliant human being that is Brooke Fraser. She is undoubtedly, one of the greatest things to come out of the young space that is New Zealand.