Ottawa singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette has made an industry out of exposing major angst on her albums -- to the tune of 40 million albums sold worldwide since her 1995 major label debut, Jagged Little Pill.

And her latest disc, Flavors of Entanglement, is no exception given her split from Canadian fiance-actor Ryan Reynolds -- who has since become engaged to actress Scarlett Johansson -- made for more grist for the mill on such emotionally charged, relationship-based songs as Straitjacket, Not as We, Moratorium, Torch and Tapes.

During a recent teleconference interview with North American music writers including Sun Media, Morissette would only say she hit "rock bottom" while writing the new disc, her first studio record in four years.

"The rock bottom that I speak of was just a personal unravelling of a couple of very significant relationships in my life at the time," the 34-year-old Morissette said. "And so the record on one level kind of chronicles the unravelling and the rock bottom finally being hit and then the phoenix rising kind of dregs of hope that always imbue anything I create ... I think it just speaks to what my true nature is, which is one that is always, hope filled, no matter how dire circumstances get."

To that end, Morissette confirmed she is now dating again despite Moratorium's lyrics -- "I declare a moratorium on relationship," but wouldn't say who, only that she still believes in finding true love.

"Oh, yes. For me it's about 'matchedness'. I think there are billions of people that are available to any given person. And I think what I'm realizing more so lately than ever is that it's about values matching. And if there are higher or lower levels of compatibility in each case, who cares, in my opinion. The less compatibility in a relationship, the more room you have for growth. But I think at the very least in the foundation of a relationship is really requiring of values being matched. So that's kind of where I put my attention now and it's a hell of a lot easier for me."

In between studio albums, Morissette said she took a long break during the past two and a half years. She travelled to Fiji, the Maldives, and closer to her California base, spent some time in Big Sur and gutted and rebuilt her Los Angeles house.

When she came up for air and began thinking about recording again, she hooked up with British electronica producer Guy Sigsworth (Bjork, Madonna), which on the surface doesn't seem like an obvious fit.

"He is a mad scientist genius," Morissette said of Sigsworth, who also collaborated with Morissette on her infamous YouTube parody of the Black Eyed Peas' My Humps.

"He is a technological servant. So it differed in comparison to the other records for me, in that I didn't really do anything on the producing side of things, where before I'd produce my own records and dipped my toe in that role. And it wound up not being a role that I enjoyed so much. So it was a pure joy for me to do what I loved to do best, which was songwriting and melody writing and music writing and sort of the philosophical side of things and leave the production side to him, which I think he did a really beautiful job of."