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As Christoher Rees releases his new album, Devil's Bridge, we caught up with the multi-instrumentalist and got his views on where he finds himself in 2009.

What are the themes of Devil's Bridge?

Well, a lot of the songs are related either directly or indirectly to narrative 'murder ballads'. I had become pretty fascinated with the whole sub-genre of American folk music around the time I was writing and recording my last album Cautionary Tales, on which there were two murder ballads.

I became even more fascinated by the way that the stories are handed down in song and change shape like Chinese whispers until they became something entirely different from the original tale with new colours and imagery.

I was recording in Abermagwr near Devil's Bridge in Ceredigion and I read about a traditional verse from 1833 called 'Prescott's Confession of the Murder of Mrs Sally Cochran, By a Private Individual at the Bar'. It just slotted into place perfectly with a banjo pattern that I'd been playing around with. That song was the catalyst that really sparked something in me to write more in the vein of narrative stories. By the end of that week I think I had another four or five.

There are also other themes that relate to life and death. Themes like curiosity, karma, fate, mortality, sacrifice, shadows, heaven, hell, desolation, imprisonment, conviction and awakening are all in there somewhere but even though there are some sombre themes I think it's a much more upbeat and immediate album than my previous ones.

In many ways by telling these stories I hope that people can get something quite life affirming out of it. I'd like to think most of my songs seek to do that even if they might not initially appear so.

How do you feel your music has progressed over the years and how does it manifest itself on Devil's Bridge?

I think I've certainly improved as a musician and feel much more confident in my own abilities now. I think I've probably realised what my strengths are a bit more too. The bottom line for me is to serve the song as best I can.

My taste and passion for music is very eclectic so I'm not sure whether I'd like to say I've found any singular direction because I still write in so many different styles and want to continue to do so and evolve without any particular boundaries.

I always want to make albums that gel as a whole body of work from a particular point in time and it just so happened that Devil's Bridge attracted a lot of songs that I'd written in the murder ballad narrative tradition even though the album itself is quite diverse and incorporates a lot of different styles from Rockabilly to gospel, bluegrass, country and folk.

Devil's Bridge is your fourth album and your fourth self-released album; are you happy self-releasing or are you still holding out for a deal?

I'm definitely not holding out for a big deal, which is why I am releasing the albums through Red Eye Music. I want to get the music out there and build a career and it would be foolish and counter productive to sit around wasting all that music, time, money and effort waiting for a big deal that may never come.

I stopped thinking about the so called 'golden carrot' a long time ago. In this day and age there aren't too many big deals floating around so I'll continue to get my music out there as best I can.

And in doing so things happen, and come your way, like finding new distributors in new countries, booking agents, managers, film synchronisation opportunities, collaborations and perhaps most valuable of all - new friends and life experiences.