A new musician has arrived in town, bringing her social media success and burgeoning career with her.
Amy West, known as Parabola West in the music world, was awarded a $10,000 grant from NZOnAir after online public voting took her unreleased song Fire to number one on theaudience.co.nz website in May.
“The song is about that inner battle about knowing better but still being drawn to the flame,” Amy said. “It’s a universal theme that people can relate to.”
With the grant she could record and master the song in a good studio and get a professional video made to go with the song. NZOnAir will then promote this through its own channels, which is “a significant platform for New Zealand artists”, she said.
Amy was based in Auckland at the time, but she and husband David decided to have a change of lifestyle and down size. David, who runs a recruitment company in Auckland, had always wanted to live in Raglan, so the pair moved to a property on the outskirts of Raglan at the end of July.
The filming of the Fire video started on the property last weekend and wound up in Rotorua, with a crew of about eight people, including a stylist, and a drone to get those “wide, amazing panning shots”.
While the video was yet to be edited, she said it would be visually spectacular, with imagery and costumes reminiscent of the TV medieval fantasy show, Game of Thrones.
“It was quite an experience. I felt very, very humbled by the whole thing,” she said.
The song and video would be released about mid-October. Amy planned to hold some sort of event to celebrate the release, particularly to pay homage to the fans that had voted for her and shared her song on social media.
“I can’t wait to show them [the fans] because they really own it, like shareholders in this experience.”
She described her music as adult pop music: “It suits more the people aged 28 years and up. A lot of the themes resonant with people who have quite a lot of life experience”.
As for the unusual name, Parabola, it was inspired by her interest in parabolic solar cookers, and seeing parallels between her music and how the cookers worked.
Amy, who was born in the United States and moved to New Zealand 12 years ago, launched her solo career as Parabola West two years ago.
Just before moving to Raglan, she did a short tour in the Hamilton, Ruapehu and Wellington areas – just her and her keyboard “for more of an acoustic experience”.
Amy plans to investigate the Raglan music scene as well.
Rachel Benn
Check out Amy and her music at: www.parabolawest.com
