Flip Grater: A lull after the rush of Paris life

Out of difficult times comes a great album, writes Paula Yeoman.

Flip Grater found Paris more of a challenge than she expected.Flip Grater has spent the past few weeks regaling journalists with tales of moving to Paris. Treading the same streets as Edith Piaf and plying musicians with whiskey and cigarettes in the famous Studio Pigalle makes for a good yarn. It's less exciting hearing stories about Grater's summer in New Zealand. But it helps to understand the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into making her fourth album, Pigalle.

"There are a lot of things that I always notice when I arrive home but the main thing is everything is just suddenly very easy. I can suddenly breathe, I can relax. I don't have to be on edge."

Grater concedes she underestimated the challenges she'd face in Paris.

"I didn't think it was too reckless - it was spontaneous, but my manager was there and through her I felt I had a support network," she says of her decision several years ago, to move there. "I've always been someone to throw myself into things and trust the universe and it always just sort of works out."

But within weeks her manager had left and her guitar was stolen. "I had no way to make money and I found myself completely isolated."

She describes the difficulties in what would normally be the simplest of things, like buying bread, to navigating the music world. "Trying to talk to soundmen who don't understand what the f*** you're asking of them," she laughs. "All of that is just so much more challenging."

Grater says at the time she did "plenty of complaining" but realises now she had no right to. "It was what I wanted. I had gone there for the challenge and I had gone there to be uncomfortable. Hopefully, I've grown a little bit from that experience."

It's certainly made for a great album in Pigalle. Songs like The Quit, Hymn and Justin Was a Junkie are in keeping with the same melancholy vibe of her last record. But what's unexpected is the growling rock track Diggin' For The Devil and the dark Hide and Seek.

"With my first album I had a similar schizophrenia happening - some very quiet tracks and then some very rocky tracks. Some people really liked that but others complained that it was too all over the place. So with my second and my third, I tried to make them much more cohesive. With this one, I've gone back to that urge to make a little bit of noise."

Grater is nearing the end of her New Zealand album release tour. She's got a few more gigs before she bids farewell to laid-back Kiwi life and jumps back into the deep end in Europe. And this time, she's prepared for anything. "You definitely figure out whether or not you really want to be doing this. And you do become a better musician for it. I believe that."

Flip Grater's new album, Pigalle, is out now. She is performing at the Wine Cellar in Auckland on April 24.