Entitled Passenger, the folk-pop recording is textured subtlely with electronic beats, a direct result of her husband, guitarist/producer/ songwriter Bill Bell's new toy, a home studio.

"While he was learning to use it, he'd program drums," says MacLean, over the phone from Los Angeles, where they currently reside. "I just found it so inspiring to sing with because I'm a good guitar player, but I'm definitely not a great guitar player and I'm limited. I found that writing with drums was a whole new world. I could just sing on top of this groove. That definitely change the way I write songs."

MacLean estimates she and her husband completed a quarter of the album on their own before taking it New Orleans to record with producer Malcolm Burn.

"A lot of programming, the guitar playing, a lot of the writing and a lot of the vocals was done at home," she says. "A lot of the songs already had very strong personalities and identities of their own before Malcolm got hold of them."

The songs, it turned out, weren't the only things with strong personalities. MacLean found working with Burn one of the biggest challenges of her career. "Musically, he's brilliant and incredibly stubborn. I wouldn't say I'm brilliant, but I'm absolutely stubborn as well. So it like having two goats going at each other," she laughs. "It was hard working with Malcolm, but I really honour his talent."

Her husband, who receives a co-production credit on Passenger, also honoured Burn's talent, never mediating between the pair or voicing his opinion. "Him being there gave me strength, but he refused to interfere in decisions where I was fighting. He said, 'This is your battle. I can't do it for you.' And I often won because the artist gets 51 percent of the vote," she chuckles.

In the end, MacLean found the challenge rewarding and made for a more adventurous recording than her 1997 debut, Silence. Passenger ranges from the more straightahead pop of the first single, "If I Fall" to the darker, more fervent stand-out "Divided" and French-language beauty "La Tempête".

"He likes to put his stamp on things and I love what he does," says MacLean of Burn. "I wouldn't have gone all the way to New Orleans to work with him if I didn't absolutely adore what he does. It strange though. I kind of wonder, is that (conflict) the kind of thing you're supposed to talk about? Is it the end result that you love that matters and you're supposed to say, 'It was great. I loved it.'?

"Honestly, we descended into some really dark territory of relationships. Nobody ever got hurt but it was the kind of situation where every day I wanted to quit. For some reason, the music and things that Malcolm was doing was really good, and at the end of it, he and I both said to each other, 'Wow, we really have a lot of respect for each other's talent.'"