Juliette Lewis' new album, 'Terra Incognita,' was produced by Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez Lopez. But before the two teamed up, Lewis never thought he'd be down to work with her. "I always looked at him of course as a bit of an enigma and was totally intimidated by him," she tells Spinner, laughing. "I thought he'd be elitist and be this untouchable genius and he was the complete f---ing opposite. I found a soul brother."

According to Lewis, the musical chemistry was almost immediate. "The second we talked on the phone, it was on from that point," she recalls. "We both spoke the same language. He's extremely visual in sounds, he understands the relationship between cinema and music, he's extremely versed in cinema, so we bonded over Fellini movies and like how some guitar lines can come to life as people. He got it, so from that point on I played him my demos I made on piano."

The record, which found Lewis writing on piano for the first time, sees her going in a more atmospheric direction, and she wanted to take advantage of Lopez's presence. "I really wanted to make a record and utilize what we had in the studio and Omar Rodriguez Lopez of the Mars Volta, who's a bit of a musical genius," she says. "We talked at great length about the universe we wanted to create sonically and what I really love about the record is the diversity and the range," she says. It also finds her opening up. "Also I want to work on melody a lot, work on my lyrics and really get more exposed," she says. "There's a lot of really vulnerable things on there, from 'Romeo' to 'Hard Loving Woman' to 'Suicide Dive Bombers' and I really wanted to use my voice more as a real instrument rather than being one in the mix of a lot of guitar rock."

The result is an intimate look at Lewis' life. Asked what she hears when she listens to the record she says, "The journey that I was on making it and all the gorgeous instrumentation that, to me, scores my heart and soul. It's the score to my struggles, good and bad. It's the soundtrack to all that. It's a very personal record."