Metro Weekly

Editor’s Pick: Kimbra at the 9:30 Club

Kimbra will give a preview of new music when she drops by the 9:30 Club just before Valentine's Day.

Kimbra: Save Me
Kimbra: Save Me

Nearly 11 years ago, Kimbra demanded the world’s attention with her unforgettable, dramatic retort to Gotye on his massive chart-topping hit “Somebody That I Used To Know.” The song earned her two Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, as well as bragging rights as the first female artist born in the ’90s to top the Hot 100 chart.

It’s rather unfortunate that in the ensuing decade the New Zealander effectively became somebody that the world used to know and has mostly forgotten since — though all that’s not for lack of trying on her part. Over the years Kimbra has released a handful of jazz/pop tunes that are strikingly original and delectable.

Away from the mainstream glare, the 32-year-old artist turned out a string of solo albums full of notable tunes that a Rovi critic rightly sized up as “some of the most audacious and playful fusions of jazzy R&B, pop, and dance in the 2010s.”

Kimbra has resurfaced with new music — most of it still in the “forthcoming” stage to the public — and a new label. Any week now, PIAS and Inertia Music are expected to announce the date they’ll release her fourth full-length album The Reckoning, the first single of which, “Save Me,” was released last fall.

A source at her new label who has heard the new material told Billboard magazine last fall, “It’s the most sonically autonomous and confessionally raw she has ever been, finding influence in everything from modern movie soundtracks to electronic and industrial worlds.”

Kimbra will give a preview of the new music when she drops by the 9:30 Club just before Valentine’s Day. The opening act is the Colombian-Canadian artist who records and performs as Tei Shi.

Sunday, Feb. 12. Doors at 7 p.m. 9:30 is at 815 V St. NW. Tickets are $30. Visit www.930.com or call 202-265-0930.

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