"After the scene I was walking away, tired and divorced of my wounds ..." she sings in the title track to her third album, While I'm Awake I'm At War.
Those more familiar with Grater's previous albums might know she is an artist who rarely pulls her punches: in her 2006 debut album, Cage For A Song, Grater began with the in-your-face distorted grit of Art Robot; while 2008's Be All And End All opened with the muscular, bittersweet Why Wait?, a fitting title given a work-rate that has included releasing a diary and cookbook in between overseas tours.
It seems all that work is starting to pay off, if not in monetary gain then at least in terms of attention, although Grater contends the recent media interest has as much to do with her move late last year from Christchurch to Auckland as the quality of the songwriting on While I'm Awake I'm At War.
Make a noise in the Big Smoke and you have more chance of being noticed, she says, adding that she hopes others elsewhere pay attention, including at her gig tonight at Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers.
Bandwagon-jumping aside, the positive critical reaction to her latest effort has been widespread.
"I'm stoked and amazed. And because I took a step back from the production, I'm able to enjoy it for the first time. This is the first record I can listen to with pleasure, without cringing at points.
"I think this is a breakthrough album for me because I have finally come into my own in terms of what sound I want to make. I feel really confident in my ability as a songwriter and a recording artist. I made some collaborations with people who are also confident and were the right people for me to be working with."
Grater is referring to her decision to work with producer (and fellow songwriter) Tim Guy. Together, they contacted musicians, "our combined dream band", including Goldenhorse guitarist Geoff Maddock, multi-instrumentalist Sam Prebble and keyboard player L. A. Mitchell.
"I didn't know Geoff Maddock but Tim brought him on board and I'm really grateful he did because everything Geoff brought to the album was stunning," says Grater, whose praise is borne out on a range of tracks but is arguably most evident in the Americana slide-guitar textures of I Am Gone.
"Everyone was so professional and such a pleasure to work with. No-one had heard the songs before - they just came in, listened to them then played along to them. It was very collaborative and organic as a result. We didn't want to direct; we just wanted to get the right people in to get the right sound - and it worked."
The path Grater has taken from her debut album to her latest is easy to trace; simply put, she is getting mellower. Now, the vitriol is suspended in a warm, folky concoction of acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, strings and occasional mandolin.
Grater, in her late 20s, says it has been a natural progression.
"I certainly didn't set out with the idea `this is what the new album is going to be like in terms of mood'. I think this album is more mellow. There is a maturity to it. Maybe, as you get older, you get a bit softer. I definitely feel less aggressive and less bitter, which might come into that shift in sound and lyrical content.
"I think I also wanted to make a really folky album. In the past, I have made albums that reflect where I'm at - and that has been all over the place. I couldn't listen to Cage For A Song right through because it didn't represent one feeling; there was no one mood I could be in that was appropriate for listening to the entire album.
"I wanted an album that I could put on and listen to from start to end. I guess there was an element of deliberate action there."
Intertwined with the gentle tone of the album, Grater's lyrics essentially frame a break-up album.
"I started writing the album in Europe, where I was touring about a year ago," she explains. "When I returned to New Zealand, I was feeling quite unsettled. I'd been stirred up by travelling through Europe and didn't feel like being in Christchurch any more. I was itching to be somewhere else and I think that feeling comes through in the songs.
"I was going through the starting stages of a break-up and that obviously comes through in the songs. There are a lot of themes that come through about the way we remove ourselves emotionally from a relationship before we actually remove ourselves from it.
"You become very close with someone in an intimate relationship and I think the moving away has to be in stages. I think some of the songs touch on what those stages can be. One is about the temptation to cheat or the noticing of other people. Another is about how you are already gone from the relationship. I think everybody can relate to that."
Grater has released her new album on her own label, Maiden Records. She paid for the recording. Or, to be precise, she is paying for it.
Busy with a range of other projects, she didn't have a chance to apply for funding from Creative New Zealand. As a result, she owes money "all over the show".
"I really need the album to go well over the counter. I don't think I'll make any money but if I pay everything back I'll be very happy."
On a brighter note, next month Grater heads to France, where she has secured Paris-based management, then to the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. She likes Europe, feels inspired there.
"The cities bring out a nostalgia - it's familiar yet completely new," Grater says, adding she has plans to release a follow-up to 2007's The Cookbook Tour: Travels in New Zealand food and music, in which she mixed diary entries with recipes provided by hosts and friends.
"It's a cookbook through Europe, tour stories from Europe as well as recipes I collected. It has been a lot of fun testing those recipes this year."
SEE HER
> Flip Grater and her band (including Geoff Maddock, of Goldenhorse, and Diane Swann of The Bads) perform tonight at Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers.
> While I'm Awake I'm At War (Maiden Records) is available now.
> For more information, visit: www.maidenrecords.co.nz
