Corinne Bailey Rae recorded parts of her new album 'The Heart Speaks In Whispers' on a tape deck once owned by Queen.

Corinne Bailey Rae

Corinne Bailey Rae

The 'Put Your Records On' hitmaker is about to release her third album, which she recorded parts of in Los Angeles and in her home in Leeds in the North of England, using an old tape deck which used to belong to the 'We Are The Champions' hitmakers.

Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, Corinne, 36, said: "I used to have a different tape machine and I was hiring it from this great company called Tickle and one day I exchanged it for something different. He gave me a run-down of everything that was in there and he was like 'There's this other tape machine, it's Japanese and it's from the 80s and it used to be Queen's.' I was like 'Sold!' That arrived on the back of a van. I can't remember how much I paid for it but it was reasonable."

Corinne co-produced her new LP with husband Steve Brown, who also collaborated with her on her critically acclaimed previous record 'The Sea'.

Renowned for her soulful vibes, Corinne hopes to achieve the same with her new recordings.

She said: "A lot of people don't use tape machines any more - some producers just rock up with a laptop but there's an amazing sound you can get when you use tape, it's high quality. It's like going to the cinema instead of watching a film on your phone - orally it's a massive difference."

However, just because she's using the tape machine of an Ivor Novello award-winning 70's rock band doesn't mean there's any more pressure to score a hit like the late Freddie Mercury.

She added: "I don't feel any of that kind of pressure, I have a really good label who are really supportive and I just feel that my music brings me so much satisfaction - actually writing a song that I love and producing it in a way that I'm really happy with.

"Getting the artwork together, choosing the great photographers and doing new videos, and then playing the songs live to people, That for me is a circle completed, in terms of what you put out, you get so much more back - to me it's not an important thing of thinking 'How many people are going to buy this record?' I feel really lucky and happy I had a super commercial record with my first album - that's made people get to know me because of that record, it's meant I can do new and experimental things without that pressure."

'The Heart Speaks In Whispers' is out now on Good Groove / Virgin EMI.

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