Triumphs and falls

Sharon Van Etten is cleaning her New York apartment, preparing for a visitor. A stranger is renting her home while she’s on tour.

“I don’t want to look like a slob,” she says, speaking from the Big Apple. “I’ve got piles of paper on my desk. And there’s my bike. I’m a pack rat.”

What some fans would give to have a nosy around the singer’s inner sanctum. But her house-sitter is a novelist with no interest in music.

“We are in different fields, which is refreshing. He is writing a novel about a murder. I’ll probably put my notebooks on the shelf. There is nothing he could use for his book.”

Van Etten’s powerful tales of destructive love could supply a motive. On her fourth album, Are We There, released in May, she ventures deep into the gravel-pit of her heart.

“The album itself is about being on tour while trying to maintain a relationship. And the struggle doing both and wanting both.”

A touring musician’s life might seem alien but we all know love’s triumphs and falls. Van Etten believes her studies have caught on because she does not romanticise love. “I do not write about the dream. I do not write about the good times. I do not blame anyone. I just share the pain and confusion we all feel.” The album may sound bleak, but Van Etten is happy. “I haven’t been this happy in a really long time. I don’t know what the next record will sound like. Maybe it will sound like a Broadway record.”

When she was younger she was insecure about not being in a band. She felt she should be in a group such as Tame Impala or The National. But she has grown into herself. Her sound matures from 2009 debut Because I Was In Love, through 2010’s Epic and 2012’s Tramp, and into Are We There, which is filled with softer, grander lush ballads. “I am finally being myself,” explains the 33-year-old.

She felt confident enough to self-produce Are We There, albeit with the help of Stewart Lerman, who has worked with Loudon Wainwright III. The duo met working on the Boardwalk Empire soundtrack and later collaborated on a Christmas duet with Rufus Wainwright. In Lerman’s New Jersey studio Van Etten felt able to try more ideas.

“I let the song be itself. I tried not to over-track or overproduce anything. I am not like a real producer. I don’t believe in burying the song in sonics. Stewart kept everything I wanted in mind. He helped me articulate my ideas to my band. He was amazing.”

Sonically, Are We There does not break boundaries. But it is perfectly executed by Van Etten, who does not flinch as she stares herself in the mirror.

“The songs are hard to write. I usually write them in a dark place. They are hard to perform because I am not in a bad place right now. It’s a funny duality, but that is how I write. Now I have to perform with these dark moments for the rest of my life and everybody listens to them. It’s weird.”

Are We There’s cover art is a photograph of Van Etten’s best friend Rebekah, who did the artwork for Because I Was In Love and Epic.

The photograph was taken nine years ago, just before Van Etten decided to move to New York to pursue music and Rebekah had children and settled down.

“The journey we have both shared over the years is kind of funny when you think about the paths we have chosen - they sum up my struggles I wrote the whole album about.”

Sharon Van Etten St George’s Church, St George’s Road, Brighton, Thursday, November 27