Thea Gilmore's fans include Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Joan Baez and Neil Gaiman. Last summer she and her posthumous Sandy Denny collaboration, London, were all over the Olympics coverage.

But at the same time she was donating free music to the Morning Star anniversary compilation We're All In This Together.

She may be a regular fixture on the Radio 2 play lists, but she counts one of her career high points as an invitation from Billy Bragg to join him on the Leftfield Stage at Glastonbury.

While her new album Regardless may feature more lush string sections than scruffy acoustic guitars and harmonicas, you'll still find Orwell references, a conversation between God and Satan about grammar and grey areas, and a scathing look at cultural tourism.

She is nothing if not prolific – Regardless is her 14th album in as many years – but these songs grew out of an enforced hiatus. In 2011 she gave birth to her second son and had to take several months out from music making – an unusual state of affairs for a musician who was onstage at Latitude Festival two days before her son was born.

The break, however, allowed her the distance and perspective she needed to look at her own work with fresh eyes.

“It helped me to reassess the way I was doing things,” she says. “When you write as much as I do, it would be easy to get stuck in a rut and end up putting out the same album. This helped me relearn what I do. Regardless grew out of that – in a way it’s an acknowledgement of the way life had changed dramatically. These songs are little punctuation marks in intense periods of real life.

“I once had a conversation with a friend about a very famous female artist who had had kids – he thought that the album she released subsequently was twee, self-absorbed and made her sound as if she thought she was the only woman ever to go through the birth experience.

“I never wanted Regardless to come across like that. In fact I’ve always fought shy of writing overtly about motherhood.

“For me, these are songs about being the custodian of somebody, but also about the process of letting go and accepting that you’re a landmark in someone’s life, but beyond that you don’t have control.”

Tonight she will be playing songs from Regardless at the Philharmonic Hall.

“I’ve only ever played the Philharmonic Hall once and that was for the Sandy Denny show,” says Thea. “It’s great to be going back so soon. It’s a fantastic venue.

“There are going to be at least 10 of us on the stage so we are going to be making a lot of noise,” she laughs. “I’ll be doing some from the new album but plenty of old favourites too. It’s going to be lots of fun for me – and I hope for the audience too,” she laughs.

It will be almost a homecoming for Thea, who has spent years working in the city.

“I work in Liverpool a lot,” she says. “It’s become a bit of a second home for me. I try to explain to people – Liverpool is like a free state. Everything is different. It’s like entering another country.

“In the rest of the country there’s that British miserableness that at its worst wills other people to fail. But I’ve never seen that in Liverpool.

“There is this heart of community in everything – and people want you to do well.”

Thea has worked with award-winning Liverpool mixer/producer Mike Cave for the last decade.

“I love working with Mike,” she says. “He is so talented and so great to work with. He mixed this album, and he brings a touch of magic to everything he works on.

“I’m an Oxford girl by birth, but coming to Liverpool to work with Mike opened my eyes to a new city and I couldn’t help but love it.”

Thea tours tirelessly, and now takes the children on the road too.

“Like any working parent, it’s a balancing act," she says.

“I feel very lucky that I can do both, but there’s always a lot of guilt involved. I think it’s a good learning experience for them, but they do have a fairly lateral take on normality.

“My older son grew up thinking that hanging out with Mike Scott and Bruce Springsteen, and spending weeks on a tour bus going round the US was just routine pre-school experience.”

Thea Gilmore plays the Philharmonic Hall tonight. Tickets are £15-24.50. To book see www.liverpoolphil.com or call 0151 709 3789.