Nadia Reid's album Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs was released internationally at the end of last month after its release in New Zealand and Australia earlier this year.
Buzz has been building since the international release, with Billboard saying Reid was "saving folk music'' and The Observer praising her album as an "extraordinarily assured debut''.
She had also been recognised in New Zealand, being chosen as a finalist for the 2016 New Zealand Tui Awards for Best Folk Album.
Reid, who grew up in Port Chalmers and has recently moved back there, was pleased with the global recognition, but was being careful not to let it change her reason for making music.
"It's sort of easy to get a little bit sucked in,'' she said.
The attention definitely had its positives, however.
"It helps us feel like what we are doing is worthwhile.''
It also made it much easier for her to find a European booking agent for when she and her guitarist tour Europe and America next year, for about two months from May.
The international attention started when she was hunting for a website to premiere the video for her song Call the Days.
"National Public Radio wanted to premiere it, which is probably the best premiere site you could get.''
She found it a little "frustrating'' that it seemed to have taken global recognition for her to get noticed in New Zealand.
"It might be the way that it works over here. We sort of need someone bigger telling us it is good.''
After being brought up in Port Chalmers, she had moved around a bit in recent years, but was drawn back to Dunedin.
"I certainly feel my most creative when I am down here. It could be the harbour, I reckon.
"I've got quite a few Dunedin songs - songs written down here and about the place, but it's all very subtle,'' she said.
She attributed some of her success to fellow New Zealand act Tiny Ruins, who had helped change the perception of folk music, which until recently had been seen as "uncool''.
She had already written her next album and the aim was to finish recording it by March and then release it in 2017.
"If I had my own way I would probably put it out sooner, but apparently timing is very important.''
Her newer material was "a bit more mature and a bit more confident'' and not so "down and out on love''.
After finishing off the recording of her new album, she would be on the road next year, with a New Zealand tour in March preceding her international tour.
After that, Reid said, she would probably be drawn back to Dunedin.
She was unsure how big things were going to get, but the ‘‘best thing that could come out of it'' would be getting more fans, a bigger record deal and being able to play to larger audiences.‘‘It will all happen in its own time and it's certainly not the goal.''
