These are contradictory times for Laura Mvula.

The songstress has just released joyous single Phenomenal Woman – but new album The Dreaming Room is a different matter.

“It’s a much darker record,” says Laura, who brings the album to Oran Mor on Monday, ahead of its June 17 release.

“There will always be a joyful element there, but the lyrical content and a lot of the ambiance is much moodier and much more haunting. I wanted it to be a bit more grown up.”

That decision is unsurprising, given the changes in her life over the past few years. In 2013 she released the soulful, jazzy Sing To The Moon, which sent her from working as a supply teacher into the Top 10 of the album charts.

For someone who admitted she suffered from stage fright, it was a big adjustment to make.

“With Sing To The Moon, it was so new to me to be in the limelight and putting music out, and it felt like I was over-exposing myself,” she says.

“I was very conscious of me, more than anything else – who accepts me, what do people think and this time around I don’t care as much. In order to do that I had to not take myself as seriously. I couldn’t give myself a hard time about every little thing, about the wrong word here or singing the wrong lyric there – nobody dies from that.”

In recent months the singer has spoken about suffering from anxiety and panic attacks, while another factor tied to The Dreaming Room is that she got divorced last year. Yet for all of those issues, The Dreaming Room has positives running through it, too.

The Birmingham native found herself working with the likes of legendary American jazz guitarist John Scofeld and pop hitmaker Nile Rodgers, adding guitars and synths to her sound.

“My manager was speaking to Nile at the Brits as he’s a massive fan,” she recalls.

“He was pushing me to get a picture taken with him, he’s like an embarrassing dad like that. Nile was surprisingly reciprocal and said he enjoyed my music and was interested in working with me.

“I brushed it off, because it was only a 30 second conversation, and showbiz people always say stuff they don’t really mean. But it became real when he phoned up a year later. The pinch yourself moments were when we were chilling in the hotel and having our own private masterclass, and he was trying to express what he loved about the song.”

Laura didn’t attend this year’s Brits, however, missing it in protest at the lack of diversity among nominees. She feels like she’s in a position where she can speak out more now.

“When I was at university these were the things that I feared talking about, because I didn’t want to cause conflict,” she explains.

“Until recently I’ve always been a sit on the fence type of person because it’s easier. Then when you’re a woman in your 30s, and I’m not saying that I’m ready to settle down and have kids, but you do start thinking about what you’d teach a child and what’s the world they’re coming into like.

“I spoke about my anxiety and pushing through that, and to do that I’ve had to face things in my past, and look at where this profound sense of low self esteem has come from. There are racial issues that have been surrounding me since I was five or six, and a lot of the same problems still exist for people of colour. Being young, black and female, and trying to survive in the commercial music industry has its own hardships, and messing with the mind…”

“I think it’s going to take a few key people to courageously take steps forward. We need the Nina Simone’s of our generation to take a stand.”

Laura Mvula, Oran Mor, Monday, sold out, 7pm. The Dreaming Room is out June 17