If you’re going to make soul music — joyful, authentic, modern yet classic soul music — it really helps if that music is allowed to come straight from your soul.

Pebble To A Pearl — the latest radiant gem by the gifted singer-songwriter and performer Nikka Costa — is far and away her most direct and convincing musical statement yet. If this is Costa’s most pleasing album to date — and it clearly is — then it’s exactly because the woman singing to us so powerfully has finally found the creative freedom to first and foremost please herself.

“I’ve never felt so proud of an album,” says Costa who earned rave reviews and devoted fans around the world with her kinetic live performances and distinctively funky albums 2001’s Everybody’s Got Their Something and 2005’s Can’tneverdidnothing. “Obviously, I want people to hear the album and love it,” explains Costa. “But, when it comes down to it, I don’t care because this is a totally unfiltered expression of who I am and what I do.

Pebble To A Pearl is the uplifting sound of an artist unbound following a difficult period with her previous record company — sadly, an all too common story in recent years. “This was a totally different experience and one that felt emancipating,” Costa says. “First, I got out of the old label, which was major. Now I’m just so happy not to be caught up in that big machine that’s breaking down. For a while, it felt like I was on deck of the Titanic, and I was just supposed to play the violin for myself on the ship as it was going down. I know that I was feeling that way — and could tell the people at the company were feeling that too — but no one could admit it. There was bullshit going down all around me, and I was extremely happy to get out of it all. Of course, then I had to figure out what the hell to do. I knew I wanted to make another record, but how?”