Breakout indie musician Jazmine Mary is bringing songs of hope in an often cruel world to Christchurch after releasing a second album, Dog. Jazmine Mary is one persona of Jazmine Rose Phillips, a complex artist who defies categorisation and says simply ‘It’s all me’.

You seem to keenly reject explaining yourself or your art. Why is that? Explanations are for people on trial. I make music and art as myself. All I know is how to do and be that. The reason I make music and art is to connect in a space outside of words and all the fake little things we build around us. It is a knowing and a need. I don't explain it because I cannot and I wouldn't dare.

Where does ‘Dog’ fit in your development as a musician? Big departure or continuation? It is all one big continuation. Hard to depart from something that is me.

It’s been a big few years for you – are you able to reflect back on it all or are you still in the middle of it? Both. There are some feelings I’m still catching up on, like a pile of paperwork I need to get to, but I'm also very present in now. Releasing and sharing music is really nice for that as it makes a stamp in time of a collection of things I can go back to later. A little more honest than the memory.

What would success as an artist look like for you? It looks like making music and following the feeling. It looks exactly like this.

What is one thing that you hope audiences take away from your performances? I hope they feel something, and I hope they get a kiss and fall in love.

Will this be your first Christchurch gig? I have played a few shows in Christchurch. The one that comes to mind was at Space Academy. We did a show where we life-modelled for each other's sets and the audience would sketch us while one of the acts played live. It was really beautiful – because everyone was busy drawing there was no clapping between songs, just the scribbling of pencils, so there was this really wonderful tension.

What can the audience at the Wunderbar expect from your show? Best to never expect anything, but I hope to move you and maybe scare you a little and make you feel something, anything. You can however expect one thing and that's a solo set by Vera Ellen, who is an amazing musician joining me from Wellington.

You have more than one artistic persona – can you tell us about them? I wouldn't say I have different personas, a few different personalities maybe. I do different art forms but it’s all me. I do performance art and that’s a really important art form for me in that it’s without rules and is in nature very anti-capitalist and begs to disrupt. My next show is called Their Feet Did Not Touch the Ground and is based around recorded conversations I had with a friend, Farhad Bandesh, while he was imprisoned in Australia while trying to seek freedom.

How do you prepare for a gig? Just by taking a quiet moment. I always write myself a little sweet something at the bottom of my set list, and on stage I like to look up as if I can see through the roof completely to the sky.

What album/song do you have on high rotation at the moment? Julia Jacklin's Pre Pleasure. It's her second record and it's beautiful.

How do you relax? I play guitar and drink gin, and I go look at fish. I love fish.

Wunderbar, Sat 15 July, facebook.com/Jazminemarymusic/