Alanis Morissette: New album and tour INFO(2008)
Morissette Experiments With New 'Flavors'
Alanis Morissette will burst back onto the scene next spring with the album "Flavors of Entanglement." The set balances world- and folk-influenced tracks against the experimental pop leanings of producer Guy Sigsworth (Bjork, Madonna).
"When I heard the song 'Let Go' by [Sigsworth's band] Frou Frou, I listened over and over again. I was blown away by it. I called him on the phone myself and after a couple of conversations, I could tell we were going to be on the same page," Morissette tells Billboard.com.
The Canada native envisioned an album that pulled in her various musical interests, "a combination of everything" from organic instruments to hip-hop beats. Plus, "it's the first time since I was 16 I've had a boy back-up sing on one of my album. I'm finally giving them a chance," she laughs.
The effort, which she hopes to whittle down to 11 tracks in the following weeks, includes "Not As We," which features only piano and vocals, and "Moratorium," which is "essentially a song about my readiness to stop repeating bad patterns. I've kicked some of those in my life."
Thematically, the album explores Morissette's personal struggles over the last few years and the more political struggles in the world over. "Really, in the end, the personal struggles are political. Our emotions align themselves with larger symptomatic things in the world," Morissette explains. "We face a large war out there, but [the album] more closely reflects the war in peoples' living rooms... the icy silence at home, versus the big cold war."
As previously reported, Morissette signed on to the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1985 sci-fi novel "Radio Free Albemuth," which started shooting in October. Morissette, who has acted since she was a preteen, said her screen ambitions have been a welcome escape from the music industry at times.
Alanis Morissette Plans Fall U.S. Tour
With her new album, "Flavors of Entanglement," due out June 10 on Maverick/Reprise, Alanis Morissette is planning an intense spate of road work that will include headlining dates in North America this fall.
"I would believe a North American tour would start mid-September," the Canadian singer-songwriter told Billboard.com during a teleconference with reporters on Thursday (May 8). "We'll be going back and forth from Europe to America probably three times throughout the summer, doing our own shows and probably some festivals as well."
While some promotional dates and radio station concerts are being set up, Morissette starts her tour proper on May 31 at the Rock in Rio festival in Lisbon. Her European run also includes festival shows in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Spain, Romania, Turkey, France, Belgium, Hungary and the U.K. No specific North American shows have been announced yet.
Morissette said she and her band would be starting rehearsals today (May 9) to break in two new members as well as the "Flavors of Entanglement" material.
"I do know we'll be playing quite a bit of the songs from this new record and songs from the last 13 years," she said. "And any time there are new bandmates that are integrated into the band, it infuses and it imbues the songs ... with a new energy, so that's exciting."