The Independent

There are few female singers who have such a starry array of fans yet remain so overlooked by the public. "I think some of my work is quite well known" insists MacColl "but people don't necessarily know it's me. And I haven't been particularly prolific." But after 20 years on the fringes of stardom, she remains unfazed. "I've never been fashionable, but I've never been unfashionable either". MacColl's prolonged absences haven't helped. Soon after the success of A New England in 1985, she married producer Steve Lillywhite and became pregnant.

"Towards the end of the eighties I did a lot of stuff with other people because I had small children and I couldn't go out on the road. It was a way of staying in touch with the music world without letting it take over." But MacColl's recent absence from music has had less to do with family commitments and more to do with the gathering of ideas. Over the last seven years she has travelled extensively in Cuba and Brazil, drawing inspiration from Latin music. "My first visit to Cuba was in 92, though I'd already recorded with some Latin musicians in New York before that. After visiting Havana a few times I started travelling all over the country, getting increasingly immersed in the music."

"I went to Rio and Salvador and then a friend set me up in a studio in Recife. I wanted to do an acoustic thing - just a guitar and a couple of percussionists - but when I got there I realised that the guitarist wanted to be in Dire Straits. They're very into rock in Brazil and I had to spend a lot of time bullying them into being more Brazilian."

Less a new direction, Tropical Brainstorm reflects a new way of living. "I was travelling alone for two or three weeks at a time" she recalls "picking up the language as best I could, and just soaking up a whole new culture. There was so much to take in. The mambo is one particular rhythm that comes from Cuba but cha-cha, salsa and son all originate from there. For an island that small it's produced an amazingly important amount of music."

Indeed, MacColl was so taken with the place that she considered giving up the music business altogether. "I do think I could be happy making a living doing something else. I could teach English to foreigners. If I didn't have commitments here I would be quite happy to travel and spend more time abroad."

Could the fact that MacColl was compelled to go abroad for inspiration be an indictment of an ailing British music scene? "Well, there wasn't anything that grabbed me over here. I wasn't interested in techno or britpop or whatever else was coming out at the time. English people can be closed to music from other countries. I'm just not into that little England thing."

Given the strong Latin influence present in 1991's My Affair her new direction does not come as much of a surprise. More unexpected is the change of mood on Tropical Brainstorm, the devil-may-care atmosphere light years away from her mournful Titanic Days. "I was very unhappy when I did Titanic Days. I think it was a good record but you have to be reasonably strong to listen to it. I made a conscious decision after it not to do another album until I was feeling mroe happy about life."

Is it possible that working alone ane being so far away from home has finally afforded MacColl some much needed self-belief. "Perhaps, I did it really for the experience, thinking, If we can't use any of it when we get back then so be it, but I would at least have had a go."

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The Independent

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