Listen to Melanie de Biasio's new album No Deal

Melanie de Biasio releases her album No Deal on Monday (28 April), but you can listen to the album in full right now on Q – plus here’s her guide to the record

“No Deal was recorded in 3 days and we adopted a basic, old way approach to this with everyone in the same room except the vocalist and we were separated by a transparent window. The placement of the microphones and musicians were really important, so the whole of the first day was used to do this. We wanted it to be perfect. Over the next two days we created the textures and colours of No Deal. Once we finished recording, I took my time to really extract and distill the essence of the album. Time was my artistic Director. Five years. No less.”

“I Feel You needed to be short. I wanted to invite the listener into the song. To the perfume of his own presence. With a voice, a flute and a clarinet.”

“The challenge was to transform this complex 11/8 Rhythm Song into a Fluid and open space groove. Not an easy challenge, but so inspiring. The experience was to offer to the listener the beauty of the complexity of the song.”

“No deal with Love no deal with rest, no deal with our feelings and wishes. We need to follow the flow, our Flow.”

“An instrumental song. At first sight, this track was full of text and flute. Too Much information and a U-turn at some point. The music needed to remove them and to put some space for the other instruments.”

“Lyrics written by the amazing Pascal Paulus who appears on the album with me. The groove and melody appeared quite instantly. An addictive work song blues.”

“Written by Rudy Stevenson and sung by the inimitable Nina Simone. I love this record. And the words meant so much to me I just made it mine.”

“This was a collective improvisation from the band and myself in the studio. No editing, no effects. Just pure sound and emotion. We were exhausted and drained after three days of intense recording and this was the release.”

For more head to Melaniedebiasio.com.