Today, two-time GRAMMY award-winning  artist  Kimbra  releases her latest album, A Reckoning out now via Inertia / [PIAS]. Accompanying the release is the music video for ‘foolish thinking‘. LISTEN HERE+ WATCH HERE.

A Reckoning is a reflective record exploring themes of vitality and aggression through channelling anger and protest, into forces for good. Kimbra seeks to highlight both the role of the Feminine and the archetype of a Mother in restoring balance amongst people, the planet and our internal reckoning with conflict. The album hints that our greatest tool toward peace, change and equality is the allowance of pain, and the transformation it creates. It’s the most sonically autonomous and confessionally raw she has ever been, finding influence in everything from movie soundtracks to electronic, R&B and industrial soundworlds.

The album was first imagined in 2018, during Kimbra’s tour with co-producer Ryan Lott of the band Son Lux, who scored A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once, the album is highlighted today via focus track ‘foolish thinking‘, perhaps the most intimate window into A Reckoning yet.  Directed by Alex Cook, the music video is an intimate vignette into the experience of being a mother. The subject of the song is Kimbra’s future daughter, who is shown confronting the struggles of growing up and eventually has to face young motherhood herself. Kimbra has to accept that she cannot always protect her child, reflecting, “It’s not my place and no matter what I say, you’re gonna do what you want anyway.”

Of ‘foolish thinking‘, Kimbra says, “I wrote this song at the piano in a matter of hours. It started as a letter to my future daughter but quickly partnered with melody. It felt as though I were channeling my future self; a Mother trying to protect her child from pain while understanding that they must experience adversity to grow. I was imagining the loss of control when you realize the most loving thing is to let go. Having Ryan sing the second verse added a beautiful dimension because he has the actual lived experience of being a father so could perform my words from a very personal place. I feel there’s a lot of expectation on mothers to have it all figured out before they pass on their blueprint to the next generation. I wanted to make a song that would ease that external pressure a little, because we will always be learning right alongside them.

Director Alex Cook adds, “Hearing the track for the first time, there was such a rare sincerity and emotional depth in the song and lyrics. There is often an almost inseparable sense of wonder and pain in the experience of growing up. Sometimes it isn’t until years later that we begin to understand the full emotional complexity of a life event. We hoped to carry those feelings into the video as we follow a mother watching her young girl grow up through life stages until she has a child of her own. The mother’s light, her warmth, follows her daughter through scenes of her life, until she enters into her own phase of motherhood.”

Kimbra will celebrate the album release with her A Reckoning headlining tour throughout Europe, the UK and North America, with support from Tommy Raps. Stay tuned for Australian tour dates on the horizon.