Listen to This: Gin Wigmore - "Kill of the Night"

An exciting facet of the global music industry is the opportunity to find new material from interesting and far-off places. Lorde, of "Royals" and the current hit "Team," isn't the only interesting act to emerge from New Zealand of late. There is Kimbra, the female featured voice on Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," and there's Gin Wigmore, whose sultry "Kill of the Night" is featured in a new commercial for Nationwide Insurance.

You may remember Wigmore's voice, a distinctive Macy Gray-meets-Duffy growl, from the James Bond flick Skyfall (and a related beer commercial). Her 2012 sophomore album Gravel and Wine, a number one hit in New Zealand, is full of Bond-like slinky jazz-pop tunes, like "Black Sheep" and "Man Like That." The deeper cut "Kill of the Night" is the kind of timeless lounge pop made popular by Amy Winehouse, and goes to show how immense and lingering the late singer's influence remains seven years after her debut.

"Kill of the Night" is full of satisfying choruses, "ohhhs," and percussion and snaps at once synthetic and alive. Wigmore's vocals are powerful and immersive, just this side of screechy but still in the realm of sensuality, and the lyrics strike familiar but still effective noir strings ("My cold desire to hear the boom, boom, boom of your heart"). She slinks like a panther, and when she strikes, you believe her, and don't mind being her kill.


Gin Wigmore's Gravel and Wine was released in the US in 2013. For a nice escape into the realm of Pussy Galore, check out "Kill of the Night" and give the rest of the album a go.