Cheryl has signed a new record deal with dance label 3Beat.
Cheryl
The 35-year-old singer is said to be planning to drop a "string of singles" before she launches a new album, and has signed up for the label - which is a part of Universal, and is home to acts such as Sigma - because of their "huge success" in the singles chart.
A source close to the star said: "When she went into Universal this summer to discuss plans for release, bosses were impressed.
"After several meetings she did a deal with 3Beat because they've had huge success in the singles chart in the past few years and would give her creative freedom.
"She has a string of singles she wants to release before committing to an album and now she can test the waters to do whatever she wants."
The 'Crazy Stupid Love' hitmaker - whose last album was 2014's 'Only Human' - has been working away on new music for most of the year, and is keen to retain plenty of "creative control" on her new material.
The source added to The Sun newspaper: "Cheryl has been working on music for the past six months.
"The recording process has been driven solely by her and she wanted to retain as much of the creative control as possible."
Last month, it was claimed Cheryl's upcoming new single 'Love Made Me Do It' was inspired by her split from ex Liam Payne, with whom she shares 19-month-old son Bear.
A source said: "It is a very edgy pop-dance track and not a typical song which you would expect from Cheryl.
"She's not holding back on her feelings and inevitably it will lead to a lot of speculation."
And Liam recently hinted the break-up with the star will feature on his own upcoming new album.
He said of the record: "I have enough songs for it and was ready to put it out.
"But I kind of feel like some of the songs I'm not ready to put out right now with the way I'm feeling. I don't know.
"To be honest with you, life's took a little bit of a different turn as of late, so I'm kind of going with that turn and being honest with my feelings and stuff."
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