Dido-mite!

I'm looking down Dido's shirt. Let me explain. First, I should make it clear that she has - at least, tacitly - given me permission. It may only be because she's too polite to refuse, but since we've only known each other for a few minutes, that would be a guess. At this point, there hasn't been time to form anything but the most casual impressions - like the fact that she laughs easily and wears little makeup. Today, her short blond hair is pinned back and she's wearing jeans, sandals and gold hoop earrings. All very casual, very L.A. - her part-time adopted city and the place where she has spent much of the last three years recording her long-awaited third album, Safe Trip Home.

So much for surface perceptions; inquiring minds need more. "You want to know what I'm wearing?" she asks, somewhat incredulously. "You'll have to help me out." I point to her shirt. "I don't know who made it. Do you need to know?" Oh, yes. With that, she hangs her head while I position myself directly above…the back of her shirt. After fumbling around behind her neck, she reveals a Balenciaga label. Another victory for the fourth estate. The pursuit of truth must never rest.

But as we sit together in a home tucked away in the hills that frame Los Angeles, I detect something about Dido that, unlike her Balenciaga top, doesn't quite fit. Although it's almost fall, L.A. has been hit with a wave of suffocatingly hot weather - today, the mercury is scraping 30°C. Yet, Dido is wearing a black cashmere sweater over her shirt. Huh? "I'm always freezing in L.A.," she says. "I've never been colder since I got here." Isn't her primary residence in London, a place so perpetually damp that laundry never dries? It's the constant air conditioning, she explains. "Here, I spend my whole time in a jumper."

It has been a long time since 37-year-old Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong - known to friends and fans alike by her childhood nickname, Dido - spent a lot of time in the public eye, jumper or not. Yet, it's a testament to her considerable impact that, five years after her last album, the November 18 release of Safe Trip Home has been ushered in by considerable buzz. Perhaps it's because No Angel, her 1999 debut effort, spat out catchy tunes like a tennis-ball machine at Wimbledon: "Thank You" and "Here With Me" became top 10 hit singles, and the album sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Or maybe it's because her 2003 follow-up album, Life for Rent, hit a nerve yet again, delivering hits like "White Flag," "Life for Rent" and "Don't Leave Home."

With that back-to-back success, Dido proved that she was a prodigious talent whose 15 minutes of fame were far from spent. But five years between albums? That can test even the most dedicated fan's patience. "It was a long time in the making," she says. "I didn't feel an intense urgency to put another record out. I've always waited until I have something to say."

Image courtesy of Kayt Jones/Sony BMG