Bic Runga is one of just a handful of New Zealand artists who have truly earned the term ‘iconic’. Her songs are etched into the country’s consciousness.

Born in Christchurch to a Chinese Malaysian mother and Maori father, Bic grew up around music. Her mother had been a lounge singer in Malaysia; her older sisters, Boh and Pearl, both played and sang. By her teens she had mastered drums, keyboard and guitar and was writing her own songs.

Since her first single ‘Drive’ in 1996 – a top ten hit when she was just twenty – she has been awarded almost every musical honour in the country, including the APRA Silver Scroll Songwriting Award, a brace of Tui’s and multi-platinum discs. Her debut album Drive (1997) went platinum seven times; Beautiful Collision followed in 2002 (eleven times platinum) and Birds in 2005 (triple platinum). She has shared stages with Neil and Tim Finn, Dave Dobbyn, members of Radiohead and Wilco. Her songs have featured in hit film soundtracks (American Pie), her records have been released around the world, and she has won followings in Europe, Asia and North America. In January 2006, The Queen made Runga a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Zealand New Year's Honours List.

The five years since her last album of new material have passed quickly, at least for Bic. You could say life intervened - specifically the birth in 2007 of her son. Bic admits that there were times when she wondered if she would ever make another album.

“The only time I could think about writing was when I was trying to get my son to sleep. I’d lie down with him, and that was the one time I got any real peace,” she says. “Motherhood is very nice. But there comes a point where it would be really easy to lose your identity, and if you didn’t return to your art you’d just become a pain to everyone around you.”

The constraints of parenthood necessitated a new approach to her work, so she tried something she had never seriously contemplated before – and it led to an artistic rebirth. Bic embarked on a series of ‘songwriting blind dates’ with some of New Zealand’s top songwriters. One of the first was with James Milne, better known by his performing alias Lawrence Arabia, who worked with Bic on ‘This Girl’s Prepared For War’.

“The line was originally something like ‘this girl’s prepared to wait…’ and he went, ‘No, this girl’s prepared for war!” It’s so much better. Otherwise I was just going to write that same sad little song again and again.”

The successful collaboration led Bic to a re-evaluation of her songwriting process and her musical goals. “I let go of the idea that you had to write every song on your own record. It was like, why? It seemed a bit self-important. Part of this record was rejecting that whole singer-songwriter thing. I’m not that girl with the acoustic guitar anymore. I’ve lightened up.”

Bic also struck gold with Dann Hume, drummer for Evermore. The evidence can be found in the uncharacteristically upbeat ‘Hello Hello’ – the first single from the album - and the achingly melodic ‘Good Love’. “Evermore have this whole stadium aesthetic, and mine couldn’t be more different. But Dann pulled something out of me.”

But most significant of all her collaborators is undoubtedly Kody Neilson, former frontman for unruly rockers The Mint Chicks, who not only co-wrote several songs but also produced the album. Kody and brother Ruban had already brought Bic a sketch of ‘Tiny Little Piece Of My Heart’ before returning to the Mint Chicks’ base of Portland, Oregon. Months later, with the Mint Chicks on indefinite hiatus, Kody returned to New Zealand and picked up where he left off. He backed Bic at her Vector Arena show with Leonard Cohen, and the pair even played a handful of shows as a duo, Kody and Bic, including the Big Day Out. The track ‘Darkness All Around Us’ was initially released as a radio single, credited to Kody and Bic, and was warmly received.

‘The Devil On Tambourine’, one of the last songs recorded, was another Neilson-Runga co-write, inspired by a quote from Miles Davis. “What I like about working with Kody is he’s punk-spirited, and deep down I think I am too. Being a woman, you have to do it with subterfuge and manipulation, rather than might. But I’m not ready to do what I’m told.”

Though the combination of sensitive songbird and unpredictable punk was unexpected, the pair worked closely together, swapping instruments, refining arrangements and between them making most of the sounds you will hear on the album. Even a ballad like ‘Everything Is Beautiful and New’, which Bic wrote on her own, benefitted from Kody’s input. “It would have been a strict folk song, but he came along and put all this synth bass on it, and it was just right.”

Perhaps most unexpected of all is the album’s sole cover, ‘Belle’. Originally the theme to Belle et Sebastien, a classic French children’s television series of the 60s, Bic sings the song in its original French.

Lastly, a trip to Los Angeles saw a few touches added by legendary multi-instrumentalist and producer Jon Brion (Kanye West, Fiona Apple). The result is an album that is, indeed, beautiful and new.