There's so much more you can do with the dynamics of songs when they're simple... I think it was what I needed in my life - there was a lot going on, a lot of layers.

I think if I had known then what I know now, I would have been a lot more relaxed. I'm really happy with the result and I think Bjorn helped me take it in directions I couldn't have taken it in myself. It is a scary thing to be putting it in other people's hands, but it's really necessary sometimes.

There's so much more you can do with the dynamics of songs when they're simple... I think it was what I needed in my life - there was a lot going on, a lot of layers.

I guess it was this over-riding feeling I wanted people to get from the album - a kind of positivity. On the one hand it's quite a sad record, but I wanted the songs in essence to be about pulling yourself out of a difficult time. So I thought that the idea of day after a really long, difficult night, would be pretty appropriate... I think the album's about contrasts too - contrasts of emotion - so I thought the comparison was appropriate.

The music I was writing for 'Hamlet' needed to be very simple because there was so much going on with the dialogue in that play, so I felt like the music had to complement that - so that carried on through; I was working on the soundtrack and the album simultaneously.

I set up this little office space with a piano in it and I thought that would be quite a novel way of writing the album, to make it like a job - a romanticised version of the 9 to 5. I think that was probably my favourite time. I made sure I walked there every day, which took me about an hour.

It was really hard to do that at first. You have been holding onto this thing - even though you know what someone has done before and you have faith in what they can achieve - it's just a matter of whether that's gonna be right for you. At first you do need to be quite protective; to make sure it's going down the right track, so I was pretty nervous to begin with.