I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal, magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways, it was everything I ever wanted, but when it happened all I felt was total, paralysing fear.

I have this sensation of being in flight all the time, but being on stage is like creating a sanctuary in which you can completely lose yourself. The bits of your personality that you keep under wraps in ordinary life, you can let them run free.

I'm really careful with what the music gets put with, and we say no to so much stuff, loads of it, for things that might quadruple the sales of my album. But if it doesn't fit then it doesn't fit, you know?

I try to maintain a healthy dose of daydreaming, to remain sane.

I think I should get a bigger between-the-song persona, so then I'm not wandering around the stage like some mad old auntie that's saying hello to people and falling over.

A lot of the songs on the new album are about imaginary things, things that you can't touch - ghosts and rumors, my dead grandmother, things visiting you in a dream.

The music is so euphoric,as a way of battling the words. It’s like an exorcism, beating it out with drums, shake this demon out, it’s so visceral because the melancholy has to be drummed out. I can’t let it sit inside me.