I began our interview by asking her the story behind the recording of her first solo album.

"I split up from my partner in Pooka, after ten years. That happened last year, and I have been working on this album since then. It could have been recorded more quickly but I was keen to work with certain people. Rob Ellis of P.J. Harvey had offered to produce it but was away on tour, so obviously I waited until that tour was completed. Mark Jones had similarly offered to engineer but he then went on tour with Peter Gabriel, and of course I wanted to wait for him.”

Whilst waiting for such top quality personnel, Natasha continued writing songs, so when the time to record finally came she had new songs and “back catalogue” titles to choose from. This provided plenty of scope to carefully select the numbers that would best work in the studio and fit the mood of the album she was seeking to create.

“I tend to structure my work and always start with an acoustic guitar when composing. With time to spare beforehand, for this album I was actually able to write recordings rather than “just” the songs. I arranged these songs as I wrote them. I like chopping and changing on the computer, so I really would call this arranging, I think.”

I mention that even the arrangements for tonight’s live show with occasional performing partner Andy Nice had certainly seemed intricate.

“Most of that is inspirational and instinctive. I am not trained to know what to put with what and I have to work by feel. Andy is more technically minded than I, cello players usually are, but he was mainly improvising tonight.”

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