After selling million of albums with “The Sound Of White” (2004) and “On A Clear Night” (2007) and touring the world performing her much-loved songs like ”Scar”, “Steer”, “The Special Two” and ”Where I Stood” Missy privately made the decision to turn her back on music and do something else.

Plenty of artists give lip service to packing it in but Missy actually walked the walk. What’s more, she did it without telling the public. There were no farewell tours, no press releases. Instead she just quietly gave the music biz types around her a ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you’ chat and got on with living a new life.

Jump cut to three years later, and her new album “The Ol’ Razzle Dazzle” tells the unvarnished story of that journey.  While her previous albums leant heavily on her personal relationships, this album delves deep into Missy’s relationship with making music. And as the tongue-firmly-in-cheek title implies, it’s been a tumultuous affair.

“You get the amount of success you dream of and it doesn’t bring the happiness you thought it would,” Missy says. “You have an existential crisis – how do I become happy? If this doesn’t give you fulfilment what does? And when it’s caused by something you’ve always attached as being your identity, what do you do? I’ve always been the singer or the musician or the songwriter. And when I quit music that was terrifying. Who am I? It was scary but it was also important to find out.”