The Love Addict

8220;I was a full-blown love addict, so it was like, 8216;I can8217;t keep doing this; my body can8217;t take it.8217; Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it8217;s debilitating,8221; said Morisette, 8220;So this was a huge, critical juncture for me. Everything broke, and it was an amazing and horrifying time.8221;

You can hear all about it on Morissette8217;s recent album, Flavors of Entanglement. Although it touches on other themes and isn8217;t framed as a literal blow-by-blow account, the 11 songs describe knotty conflicts and the pain of separation.8220;I miss your warmth and the thought of us bringing up our kids /And the part of you that walks with your stick-tied handkerchief,8221; she sings in 8220;Torch,8221; dealing out vivid details in her distinctively conversational style.

But more of the songs 8212; 8220;Not as We8221;, 8220;Moratorium8221;, 8220;Giggling Again for No Reason8221; 8212; are drawn from the aftermath of the breakup, a process leading to what she calls 8220;the Phoenix rising8221;. 8220; I went to therapy five days a week. I journaled. I had a lot of support from this incredible group of friends. It was just really moment by moment, step by step, snail8217;s pace.8221;

She also gutted and remodeled her Los Angeles house one of her favorite forms of expression, she says, rode motorcycles, worked on a book and designed jewellery.

And made music, this time with English producer Guy Sigsworth, who helped her return to an electronic dance style reminiscent of her records as a teen star in her native Canada. While Morissette has been known for raw candour since her landmark 1995 album 8220;Jagged Little Pill,8221; parts of 8220;Flavors8221; take it to a new level. This time she didn8217;t need to call on the journals she usually uses as a catalyst 8212; the events were unfolding even as she was working on the music.

8220;These songs were written in the exact present moment as it was happening, so that may be something that8217;s palpably felt on the record.8221;

Sigsworth, who has worked extensively with Bjork and teamed with singer Imogen Heap in the group Frou Frou, says, 8220;She seems to just centre on that focal point, the crisis issue at the heart of the song, and gets it immediately,8221; he says, 8220;There were songs that had me in tears.8221;

At 34, Morissette, doesn8217;t seem like someone who8217;s been to rock bottom. She8217;s dating someone again, and she laughs easily. She has also finished shooting a lead role in Radio Free Albemuth, a science-fiction movie based on a Philip K. Dick novel 8212; one more public venue for a woman who isn8217;t sure that8217;s where she wants to be. 8220;To me the biggest irony of this lifetime is that for someone who thrives in the public eye in the creative ways that I do, I actually don8217;t enjoy being in the public eye,8221; she says. 8220;I feel like I8217;m a recluse in a famous person8217;s body. 8220;But I love to entertain. There8217;s the voice that constantly says, 8216;You have to share this.8217; I have this temperament of someone who just wants to yell 8216;No8217; but it8217;s what I8217;m here to do, so I keep doing it.8221;
-Richard Cromelin LATWP