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Platforms like TikTok has repopularised your song Headlock, but how did it feel in the early 2000s when you had to create, advertise and market the Speak For Yourself album largely on your own?

At that time if you were blessed you got into popular press outlets. The primary exposure I got was in the specialist audio publications, but then the track Hide and Seek was in a television series, Headlock got on the radio and I started getting acknowledgment. Imagine having social media and all this free promotion in that era … but if I’d received then the kind of attention I get now, I might have made changed paths, so I would keep everything the same.

Did you actually take out a loan on your flat to finance Speak For Yourself?

I spent four years making an album in [the electronic duo] Frou Frou on a major label, but it never recouped so I never saw a penny. Creating more music with that label would have felt like taking your best dress back to the dry cleaners after they burned it. Once I left that contract, no bank would lend me any money. Then I realised that my two-bedroom flat in the city I’d bought for a specific amount was worth a hundred grand more a year later. I took out a new loan to make the album and never looked back. Funnily enough, after all the attention on TikTok recently I’ve just received my initial payments from Frou Frou after decades.

More than 20 years ago, you recorded and toured with an iconic musician. How did the team-up occur?

I met Jeff when I was nineteen at a music workshop in Miles Copeland’s castle in the Dordogne. I was the junior participant and introverted so I got fairly inebriated. I was sitting outside attempting music to myself and Jeff said: “Allow me to teach you.” I said: “You’re talented!” Afterwards I ended up steering a golf caddy around the estate and colliding with Miles’s mum’s cherished planters. Seven days after I got a message from my manager asking: “You spoke with Jeff Beck?” He told me he was this well-known musician – I had no idea – who wanted me to collaborate vocally. I sang his song Nadia as best I could and did concerts with him. He was a sweet man and I respected him deeply. Numerous artists from that generation are just so thankful to have been able to do what they loved all those years, and their egos are very small in comparison to the amount of recognition they received.

‘I wish social media existed and all this no-cost advertising in that era’ … the artist, London, the mid-2000s.

The Listening Chair is a personal musical piece, intended to evolve over time every a seven-year cycle. How hard was it to condense years of life into 60 seconds?

I’m unsure about my success, but I sat in a actual seat and asked audiences: “What music deserves creation?” There were countless different answers, but all relating to their ages. For anyone aged very young it was basic terms like “cat” or “game”, from 7-14 it was entertaining, 14-21 was about personal identity and 28-35 “career dissatisfaction and that maybe I relationship doubts.” I didn’t complete 35-42 because my personal tragedy in my that period and I just couldn’t do it, but I’m about to release the final piece, a lengthy track called I Am, about my current self. The Listening Chair is all accurate. The line “Wonderbra thrown around the German classroom … I’ll never live it down” is about the time my best friend – who wasn’t then – took my silly undergarment out of my drawer and threw it through the German classroom window. Then everyone passed it around. I was deeply embarrassed.

How did you get the inspiration for that joyful music? It consistently delights my one-year-old whenever I put it on, so gratitude.

A formula brand the company wanted to create a composition that would make infants cheerful, so they put me in a research setting. I developed musical elements depending on their responses. My two-year-old daughter Scout started some of the melodies. We’d taken her to the a museum so that’s where “those playful lyrics” comes from. The sound at the start is her amused by an animal. Children adore that track, but it soothes adults, too.

Were you really a rebel at school and if so what were you opposing?

It troubles me for some of the things I did. The breaking point came when I told the staff member off and they removed me, but they still needed me to be the highlight for the end-of-term concert, so I ended up staying with the principal and she was exceptionally nice. I just found residential education insanely boring. I was recently diagnosed with specific conditions, which might explain why I’ve always wanted to shake it up and do new things.

How many hair colours have you had?

Lately perhaps, actually, all kinds of unusual tones. When I was younger I had issues around my body, so like I’d wear leg warmers to make my legs not look so thin or wear elaborate outfits with decorations. For the extended period I’d tease my hair into a big look because I felt my head was too petite. It’s only in the last few years I’ve realised I actually accept myself – I just needed to add some texture.

It’s been 11 years since your last proper album. Will we ever get a another album?

Certainly, I did the themed project [The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – in Four Contemporary Suites], and a recently I made the music to an audio series called the project with my associate the creator, who gave me a various noises like environmental samples, which we turned into a double album. I just got tired of traditional formats, but now I’m really excited about freestyling and making up lyrics in the moment. I’ve spent thousands of hours isolated creatively and I’ve sacrificed personally. There will be a release soon which will be the final piece of that old world but I’m more passionate about instantaneous composition.

‘My studio work consumed me and I’ve missed a lot of life’ … Heap plays in that city, the near future.

During that period, that artist invited fans to her property to hear her new album 1989 while she offered treats. It seemed a very typical thing to do. Had you discussed audience engagement when you collaborated on the closing track, Clean?

Not exactly. I think, like me, she just enjoys public response. I’m constantly dragging people to the studio going: “What do you think?” It’s meaningful to see if something you’ve just completed connects people. I’ve had many supporters round to gatherings and I’m sure her fans are as welcoming.

Previously, a feature on your plans to use AI to enhance your live performances. Listeners had worries. Is it still active?

A hundred percent. When people think of AI they maybe think of this independent entity making all the music while I’m sitting there being a passive participant. I see it as a collaboration. Say I’m in a outdoor space and there’s {dog sounds