Tori Amos splits with label, goes indie

U.S. singer Tori Amos performs during a concert in Raanana, near Tel Aviv, July 21, 2007.

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Tori Amos has ended her six-year tenure with Epic Records, calling on her fellow artists to "stop being dependent ... on any system that has become undependable."

The singer/songwriter, 44, released three albums on Epic, most recently 2007's "American Doll Posse," which hit No. 5 on the Billboard 200.

Before that, she was with Atlantic from 1992 until 2001, when she joined artists such as Rod Stewart, Poe and Collective Soul in leaving the label.

In a statement on her Web site, Amos said she looked forward to crossing into "the new unchartered Music Frontier," where the impossible will soon become possible.

"Artists need not fear structure, we just have to design and partner with expansive ideas," she said. "It is time for us as artists to stop being dependent, dependent on any system that has become undependable. Only then can we help to create a new system that propagates and secures independence for each creator."

Amos' next album, due in spring 2009, will be "a project of new music and visuals which is being started in the summer," Amos' manager John Witherspoon told Billboard.com.

Amos is also writing a musical for the British National Theater, "The Light Princess," and in July will unveil a graphic novel, "Comic Book Tattoo," based on her catalog.

Reuters/Billboard