Nerina Pallott talks about working with Kylie ahead of her gig in Birmingham

The Brit-nominated singer/songwriter has written for the likes of Kylie Minogue and a fistful of X Factor hopefuls: “I can’t say Kylie wasn’t good money – it was. But I only saw it as a means to an end: funding my own records. But after a while it became so soul-destroying. Not necessarily for me, but because of all these young artists – they’re being filled with all this hope. And you know that unless the second single goes, it’s over for them. I saw that time and time again. I don’t want to be a part of that. It’s grim.”

She’s no longer a fan of co-writing: “I’ll never do it again for love or money. I’m actually really down on people who co-write.”

And she’s also got more chips on her shoulder than McCain about the way her first two albums were marketed. “Very pop, very mainstream, and it was all about being nice. A journalist said: ‘Her hair is too glossy to take her seriously.’ I hated it at the time but she was right! Although, to be honest, it is nice to see yourself looking pretty.”

She has no time for pop superstars, like Taylor Swift. “Taylor Swift could make the greatest record of all time. But it’s too late – she’s TAYLOR.”

And so meet Nerina Pallot, a smart artist who talks straight and writes beautifully. Her new album is Stay Lucky. It’s her sixth, and she’s releasing it at the age of 43. The Jersey-born, London-based musician played her first gig in 1995, which means she’s been doing this for 22 years. Is she bothered about any of those numbers? What do you think?

“I’ve only now just got a handle on things. I don’t know why we have this massive issue with age.”

Nerina wrote Stay Lucky and played guitar and piano and synths and percussion on it. She produced it, and, after relationships with three different major labels, is releasing it on her own label, Idaho Records.

“That’s allowed me to be free,” she notes, stating the happy obvious. “When I think about why I went pop on my third album [2009’s The Graduate] – which was a disaster for me; I lost a lot of fans – it was because my label were breathing down my neck after the second one,” Nerina says of 2005’s Fires. It sold 100,000 copies and earned her Brit and Ivor Novello award nominations. “They were telling me it should have sold 10 million, if only it had had a radio single. So what that led to was me trying to do that – and then doing stuff with Kylie.”

Nerina wrote two songs, one of them the title track, for Kylie’s 2010 album Aphrodite. She admits that that experience, plus spells writing with Linda Perry (Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful) and Rob Davis (Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head), helped Pallot improve her chorus-writing skills. “But that didn’t translate to a radio single for me. ’Cause my heart wasn’t in it. ’Cause that’s not who I am.”

So, now that she’s free, she can “indulge herself.” This meant a year of EPs, released one a month in 2014 – and it means, further down the line from Stay Lucky, more new songs that are “way more out-there – there’s one that’s a bit Roy Ayers. Actually, that might make this album . . . But I will only do what I want to do. And as long as I can keep living, I won’t stop.”

Stay Lucky was recorded over two productive weekends in London’s legendary RAK studios. The speed belies the lovely, unhurried expansiveness of an album that is, truly and deeply, her most personal, most warmly emotional album yet.

Even as she led from the front, it’s also her most collaborative record. Nerina was aided, abetted and enriched by a thrillingly diverse selection of musicians. The players include three members of Michael Kiwanuka’s touring band, Steve Pringle (keyboards), Alex Bonfanti (bass) and Lewis Wright (drums, vibes), with the latter taking time out from his other day-job, as a member of acclaimed young British jazz quartet Empirical. The backing vocalists are Markus Feehily (ex-Westlife) and Rod Thomas (aka Bright Light Bright Light). The bulk of the string arrangements are by Sally Herbert (Florence & The Machine, Bat For Lashes), who’s worked on all of Pallot’s albums. The brass arranger is Noel Langley, probably the most respected British jazz trumpeter, as Radiohead would attest. Finally, Bernard Butler (who co-produced her fourth album Year of the Wolf) plays guitar on three tracks.

As Nerina notes typically pithily: “I’ve basically made a totally muso record, which is a great or terrible thing depending on how you feel about six-minute songs and sax solos.

“I feel like I’ve got the best career ’cause I’ve never had enough success for it to be demanded that I do the same thing over and over again. I would go completely mental having to do the same successful record again. I’d never be able to move on. I like so much music, and I love new music. Last year it was the BadBadNotGood record – I was just relieved that fusion is allowed now – I was a massive fusion fan as a teenager. And also Thundercat – I’m like, great, we can have sax solos again! Which is why a sax solo is the last thing I have to add to Stay Lucky before it’s totally done . . .”

Nerina headlines Birmingham’s Glee Club on Wednesday.