I don’t know a life without music

Dido has brought us some of our most treasured love songs and has now released her first album in six years. The singer talks to ALEX GREEN about motherhood, the trauma of losing her father and how she is finally able to sing the songs she wrote about hi

DIDO is not an artist who rushes things. Still On My Mind is testament to that. The album – her first in six years – comes as she prepares to embark on her first tour in a decade and a half.

Born Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong, in London, the singer, now 47, is unnervingly unchanged by age. Her voice, her looks, and her style remain familiar.

Also unchanged is her commitment to taking things slow. “I don’t know a life without music. I’ve always been playing music or writing songs,” she says.

“It’s just that, by coincidence, five times it’s turned into a record. But that’s it.”

Her son, Stanley, is now seven and after nearly a decade of marriage to writer Rohan Gavin she says she’s in one of the most stable, relaxed and happy periods of her life. This is reflected in the music. Out of the chaotic first years of motherhood, she is revisiting the sounds that defined her.

Over 12 tracks she dips into her past as a singer in the electronica band Faithless, which her brother Rollo founded with Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz.

She admits she hasn’t had a night out in years. But there’s always dance music playing at home. “I’ve got a kid who loves music,” she says. “He’s always listening to stuff and discovering things.”

Often it feels as if

every marketed album as a Dido comeback. releases It is was so with Still On My Mind, which was produced by her brother and is possibly her most adventurous yet. It’s an album she wrote to tour, a fact that surprised even her. “I’m really excited about this record, in a really new way that I can’t explain,” she says, sitting comfortably at the back of her management’s office. “The first record, I was really excited to just have a record. I didn’t really know what would happen after that. I just wanted to have my songs recorded. That was the pinnacle. This time, the touring feels like a new start. It’s been a really long time.” remember Many fans that will 1999 album, No Angel, which totalled roughly

22 million sales. Then came Life For Rent, which sold a still impressive 12 million. After that was Safe Trip Home, a mature and thoughtful collection of songs written for her father, autoimmune She admits who died disease now in that 2006 lupus. she from “didn’t the think an album it through”. of songs She so had personal written she was unable to sing them in public. She decided not to tour. “I love the third album. It’s got most of my favourite songs on it. But I couldn’t sing them live. It was so raw at the time. them can’t “My But talk were a dad decade about had about just on, this’.” that. she died. It feels was Loads ready like, of ‘I to perform those songs – as well as hits Thank You, White Flag and Life For Rent – in front of audiences large and small. “I would play those songs now because time has passed,” she says. “It’s not quite so raw. I was so ‘in’ it. There was a time when I didn’t want to sing White Flag for a minute. I was really heartbroken and it was just really hard to sing.” Five UK dates nestle amongst a 27-date world tour which will see her settle in with a new band and new music. Does she feel the pressure of baring her soul in front of crowds? The short answer is no. “There’s no commercial pressure. For me, I don’t feel like any pressure at all. It’s a really liberating thing, this.” She’s carefully picked smaller venues where she feels she can connect with the crowd. Union Chapel, off Islington’s well-to-do Upper Street, was an inspiration for the album. Dido wanted to be able to imagine performing each song inside the ornate concert hall. The quality of Dido’s lyrics have always been as important as her voice – specific enough that we sense her heartbreak but ambiguous enough that we find something familiar to cling on to. Hurricanes, which opens the new record, is a whispered, intense glimpse into domesticity that strikes this balance. Dido admits she’s always been intrigued by the minutiae – even at the expense of the bigger picture. “It always seems to be those small moments that are the most memorable,” she says. “Those moments, where you feel pure happiness, they tend to be when you’re just playing with your kids, you’re just playing some game, you’re laughing. “Those are the moments I find to be the most inspiring. I don’t think I’ve ever written a song about the world.” Still On My Mind is available now. For details of Dido’s tour, which begins in May, visit didomusic.com