Singing up that hill! MEET THE KIWI KATE BUSH

Raglan artist Para bola West makes ‘modern music for your ancient soul’

Kiwi musician Parabola West once kept the songs she wrote as a "self-soothing little secret", but now she's sharing her gift - and her little slice of paradise atop a hill in the Waikato - with the world on her first album.

Born in the US, this artist is no ordinary singer-songwriter. Her tunes are grounded in the off-grid Raglan lifestyle she and her husband David adopted to bring balance to their frenetic lives in the corporate world.

"We have about 8.5 acres and there's farmland all around, so it's very serene and quiet," says Parabola, 43, whose real name is Amy Tucker West. "We've planted a lot of native bush, so the birds are always coming and when we walk down the road, we get these incredible views where the ocean just rolls out. We're connected to this much wider space of nature." The couple hasn't had an electricity bill in seven years, powering their dream home with six solar panels and a wind turbine. They purify wastewater through a "bacteria farm" and the end product gets pumped underground to their orchard.

Growing their own food has been their latest challenge, says Parabola.

"At this climate, up on the mountain, the possums put up a good fight! We didn't come from farming backgrounds, so we're still learning!" Being immersed in nature has also seen the singer add more of a magical dimension to her music, which is a mashof folk and electronic tunes with a dash of fantasy.