‘Locked away in a basement, making an album in isolation, you do start going a bit crazy. So a lot of material came out of that – how to survive the making of this monster that took over three years of my life.’

Anna Calvi smiles sweetly. She does that a lot. She doesn’t seem like a person who makes monsters. Or, indeed, a kind of music that rages like wild emotions adrift in stormy seas, performed, on stage, with a fierce, laconic poise. There is definitely some split personality going on here. ‘When I play live...