Alanis releasing first album in four years

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Alanis Morissette is putting the finishing touches on her first album of new material in four years, which will come out next spring.

"Flavors of Entanglement," 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," she said.

Thematically, the album explores Morissette's personal struggles over the last few years. (Earlier this year, it was announced that Morissette and fiance Ryan Reynolds had broken up.)

"Really, in the end, the personal struggles are political. Our emotions align themselves with larger symptomatic things in the world," Morissette said. "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."

The set balances world- and folk-influenced tracks against the experimental pop leanings of producer Guy Sigsworth (Bjork, Madonna).

Morissette, 33, 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 said.

"Flavors of Entanglement" is the follow-up to 2004's "So-Called Chaos," which was a commercial disappointment. In 2005, she released an acoustic version of her 1995 breakthrough "Jagged Little Pill."

Morissette will road-test the material as the opening act for the Matchbox Twenty tour that begins January 25 in Hollywood, Fla.

Reuters/Billboard