It's not her first compilation album, but it's certainly the first to warrant the title The Best Of Eddi Reader. Just released, the 30-track collection spans the singer's entire career, from her late-80s appearances fronting the chart-topping Fairground Attraction, to covers of Breakfast At Tiffany’s Moon River and Amy Winehouse's Love Is A Losing Game, from 2014’s Back The Dogs EP.

"[It] is a retrospective, which is something I’ve never done before," confirms Eddi, who admits that when it came to selecting tracks from her lengthy career, she steadfastly declined, instead handing the job over to her label boss and manager.

"When it was suggested, I couldn’t choose, so Tom Rose from Reveal did it. I said to him ‘Good luck!’," she laughs, adding that being rooted in the present means she never listened to her old records.

However, hearing the final result has been a revelation.

"I’m living in the moment, I tend to leave things behind, I tend not to go back, but when Tom was finished, I found myself a quiet corner, put the album on, and was kinda shocked by how much I’d done, and how proud of it I felt. It’s like when you look have at old pictures of yourself - you remember feeling stresses, but you didn’t need to be worried. I thought, the girl’s done good!

"I was listening to it as a stranger, hearing it like it was never in my life," she continues. "It is all brand new to me. I did leave 1988, 1992 behind me. It’s quite amazing what you take from life. Sometimes the more artistic things become more invisible, so listening was like getting to see the positive abilities you have, and realising they far outweigh the negativity. Yes, there was trouble … but there was also good stuff."

That ‘good stuff’ includes Fairground Attractions' Find My Love and Perfect, 1994's enduring solo hit Patience Of Angels, covers of Steve Earle's My Old Friend The Blues and Fred Neil's Dolphins by Eddi Reader And The Patron Saints Of Imperfection, and acclaimed takes on the works of Robert Burns. Mixing various co-writes (with people like Boo Hewerdine) with originals (and covers), the Best Of features material from almost all her releases - though Eddi confesses she couldn't say which song originally featured on which album.

"I don’t know what’s on anything!" he declares. "Often the songs are individuals, and the albums are like portfolios, if you like. I’ve tried really hard to make them link, but the only thing that brings them together is time – the time that they were recorded.

"When I’m writing, co-writing, covering or stumbling on a song, I have a precise whole-world relationship with that song. I want it to be on its own, not defined by the songs that are around it.

"So I tend to remember the song [not the album]. I think Follow My Tears is on Angels And Electricity [from 1998], but I’m not sure," she queries and is pleasantly surprised to be correct, "... though there is another song which I thought was on Candyfloss And Medicine [from 1996], but wasn’t!"

With similar decade-spanning compilations from other artists, hit songs can often be dated by their use of key synthesizer presets, production techniques, and drum-machine sounds. But it's not so easy with Eddi, who thankfully avoided such studio trickery and aural fads.

"I do detest drum-machines, they didn’t understand the rhythms of human beings," she says with particular disdain. "They’ve fixed that now, but I’d never go near one. I avoid them like the plague.

"In the late-80s and early-90s I was very resistant, I wanted a real drummer. The Eddi Reader album [from 1994] became a drum-machine record – I’m not very happy with that record. But, there are some great songs on it! So it's a trade-off."

The Best Of comes as both a reminder of the sheer quality and consistency of Eddi's output, and also a stop-gap between 2013's Vagabonds and her next studio album.

"I’ve got a whole load of music, from an archive discovered under a bed which had been there since the ‘60s - all these songs that people had totally forgotten," she says of the material which had been accumulated her a family member and looks set to form the basis of her next record.

"There’s a poem by Thomas Moore called Do Not Say That Life Is Waning, which I’ve turned into Life Is In The Horizon Yet, which is a line taken from it ... it’s my take on it. It has some beautiful orchestration on it – all ukulele and orchestra."

Though enthused by the project, Eddi says a release date is a long way off.

"I don’t know when it will be out. Life is like a noisy river,” she says with a chuckle. “Sometimes it’s hard to step out when you have to focus on everything else – how the kids are, etc. It’s hard to find a place where you are isolated. I’m a working class lass, [I was bought up to] clean and cook, and I’m still like that. It’s hard to say ‘I’m off to do something…’. I did, when I was 17-18, and that led to Fairground Attraction, which led to me getting my own [record] deal. But I also want to be a mum, enjoy life, lie about and watch telly, you know?"

There's also a string of UK dates to keep her busy. "So I’ll be revving up again, chocks away! I come around every wee while...".

Accompanying her on tour is new Reveal Records signing, Birmingham-based singer-songwriter Dan Whitehouse.

"I’ve been listening to Dan and he sounds great, so I look forward to hearing him live. That’s the proof of the pudding, how those songs are live. But he’s been working with Boo [Hewerdine], and he only every works with good guys ...".

By David Vincent

Eddi Reader plays The Glee, Birmingham on Sunday 3 April.