Credit: Charlotte Hatherleys gang

Charlotte Hatherley’s a brave old soul. Not only did she leave Ash in January 2006 after eight years’ guitar service in order to pursue the solo career she’d begun with 2004’s ‘Grey Will Fade’ album, she’s also set up her own label Little Sister, with her manager Ann-Marie Shields, through which she’ll release her second album ‘The Deep Blue’ in March.

As anyone who’s heard her indispensable debut album would expect, ‘The Deep Blue’ is a luscious record awash with unusual songwriting and to-die-for melodies. Lead single ‘Behave’ is a strong slice of grown-up pop (with a fantastically anime-esque video) that gave a perfect indication to the album’s sound when it was released just before Christmas. And while forthcoming single ‘I Want You To Know’ is far from the album’s highlight, it’s still sweetly odd and very, very cool.

Daniel Robson got on the phone to Charlotte to discuss all that stuff. And other stuff. Oh, just read on and you’ll find out, OK?

Charlotte! Tell us about your new album please.

“OK. It’s called ‘The Deep Blue’ and it was recorded last year in Italy; I spent three months in Italy, and I guess the big difference between this album and the first album is that I had a year to work on it and make sure that it was as good as can be. So it was a lot more expensive, there was a lot more experimentation with instruments, the guitar kind of takes a backseat to pianos and strings and vocal arrangements... A lot more thought has gone into this record. It’s much more the record I would have wanted to have made but I didn’t have the time the first time around.”

How long did the first one take?

“Two weeks! It was kind of jams between sessions recording ‘Meltdown’, the Ash album, and there were two weeks in between when I wasn’t really needed. It was a very guitar-driven pop-punk record, so that was fine, but for this one I wanted it to be more about my other kind of influences – more like XTC, Kate Bush, Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips.”