Norah Jones’ New Groove.

Thirty-year-old American chanteuse Norah Jones has been keeping some interesting and unusual company. Was that really the dark-haired beauty snogging golden boy Jude Law, whom she co-starred with in My Blueberry Nights, Jones’ film debut? (Jones admitted that canoodling with Law on-camera was ‘weird’ and ‘surreal’, but, you know, she survived.) Jones even dropped into Sesame Street, and there was a very human edge to the grin that lit up Elmo’s face. She also helped out the very urban Q-Tip with the sweet slow groove ‘Life is Better’. It seems as though of late Jones has been spotted everywhere but behind a piano.

But none of these seemingly oddball cameos could have prepared anyone for the company she keeps, or the not-quite-typical music she has created for her fourth album, The Fall. It’s a CD described as "avant roots music that rocks, albeit gently", a record that has already topped the American album chart and is riding high in such disparate spots as Switzerland, Belgium, Argentina and, of course, Australia. It’s also the first album she’s recorded since splitting with long-time beau and bandmate Lee Alexander, make of that what you will.

It was simply time for a change, admits the straight-talking Jones. "I’m older now and I’m not afraid to just try something. I knew I wanted to try some different things on this album," she says. "I’d been playing with the same musicians for a long time. We’re all still friendly and I hope we play together again, but it felt like a good time to work with new people and experiment with different sounds." And that’s exactly what you get, so much so that during the dirty boogie of ‘It’s Gonna Be’ you could be mistaken for thinking Jones was fronting the Glitter Band, platform heels and all.

You want collaborators? There are more credits on The Fall than your typical Hollywood budget-buster but in a good way. Alt-country maverick Ryan Adams teamed up with Jones to write the quietly unnerving ‘Light as a Feather’, repaying the favour she provided on Adams’ Jacksonville City Nights LP. And though the name Jacquire King may not have you reaching for your autograph book, this studio A-lister, who produced, recorded and mixed The Fall, has placed his sonic stamp on records from the Kings of Leon and Modest Mouse. It was his engineering work on Tom Waits’ landmark Mule Variations that caught Jones’ ear; she described it as "the balance between being beautiful and rough and also sounding very natural." This just so happened to be the sound Jones was hearing in her head as these new songs came together. It was ample motivation to get on the phone to King.

"I wanted someone who could take me out of my comfort zone and find the right musicians to capture what I wanted to do with this collection of songs. He was really eager to do it and we got along really well, which was important," says Jones. When asked to describe The Fall, King replies: "It feels like a very natural progression and growth, but it will feel slightly unfamiliar."

Ample evidence is on the track ‘Stuck’, a co-write with Will Sheff, of the band Okkervil River. Jones’ honey-dipped voice is countered by the jagged guitars of Marc Ribot, stringman of renown for Tom Waits and Elvis Costello. On paper it seems a dodgy mismatch, but they cast a hypnotic spell, like some lost rough diamond from the Neil Young archives. It’s one of many natural highs on The Fall. And an impressive roll call of studio pros chip in: they include Joey Waronker, who’s drummed with Beck and REM; keys man James Poyser, who’s worked with the very Reverend Al Green. Long-time sidekick Jesse Harris, who was there when Jones broke through with her runaway smash, ‘Come Away With Me’, helps out on two tracks. All up, it’s a fair enough nod to the esteem in which Jones is held by her peers, both human and canine (check out the images in the album sleeve and you’ll get my drift).

Sometimes, of course, too many cooks can foul up the musical bouillabaisse, but fortunately that’s not the case with The Fall. Jones may sometimes drift from the willowy supper-club hybrid that has helped her become one of the planet’s biggest sellers, but there’s no mistaking her pillow-talking vocals, especially during such standouts as the slowburning ‘Waiting’, a song where, perhaps not co-incidentally, Jones’ name stands alone in the credits column. ‘Back To Manhattan’, another solo Jones track, positively aches late-night, moody-blue melancholy. Yet lyrically, Jones also sometimes strays from character. "You’ve ruined me now / But I liked it," she chuckles slyly during ‘You’ve Ruined Me’, hardly sounding hurt whatsoever. It’s even more proof that The Fall could have been subtitled The Many Faces of Norah Jones. "Vocally on this record I think what I like about it is that I was way more relaxed," says Jones. "I’m way more focused on everything else that was happening so I could just kind of relax and sing."

"I think the record sounds different due to the variety of musicians we used," Jones understates neatly. "I knew I wanted to play with grooves more than I have on previous albums. I wanted the grooves to be more present and heavy. Some of these new songs lent themselves to having driving rhythms underneath." Critics have agreed that Jones’ creative left-turn was a smart move.

The ever-restless Ms Jones continues to move forward. Her next appearance may well be as part of a Bob Dylan-curated tribute to country legend Hank Williams, where her fellow contributors include Jack White and Lucinda Williams. ‘How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart’, a new Jones track that didn’t make it to The Fall, originated from a recently unearthed Hank Williams lyric that the Bobfather asked her to work with. If you can be judged by the company you keep, Norah Jones just can’t climb any higher.

Yet looking back over the frantic past decade, it appears that; regrets, Jones has a few. "It feels like a lifetime ago," says Jones of the period that spawned the Grammy-winning Come Away With Me. "I feel like a completely different person. That whole time was chaos, like an insane rollercoaster ride that kept getting steeper and steeper. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but we were just working so hard and I was pretty freaked out." Fortunately, now some 30-million CD sales down the line, Norah Jones has finally seized the chance to kick back and create a record that sets free her inner dabbler. More power to her.

The Fall is out now through EMI Music.

Jeff Apter

ENDS