ALISON Moyet will follow up the May 6 release of her first album since 2007 with 24 autumn dates that will include York Barbican on October 23.

She last played York in December 2009 at the Grand Opera House on her 25 Years Revisited Tour, and tickets for her return to the Barbican for the first time since April 2003 will go on sale on March 8 at 10am on 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk

Fondly remembered as one half of Essex electronic duo Yazoo in her Eighties days as Alf, Alison will be promoting The Minutes, her first record for the Cooking Vinyl label.

The album was produced by Guy Sigsworth, who has worked with Madonna, Bjork, Goldie and Frou Frou and has co-written the tracks with Alison.

As showcased by the April 1 single When I Was Your Girl, the songs have subtle parallels with her synth-pop past in Yazoo but also take in elements of high-end pop smashes, R&B, modern club sounds and electronic experimentation.

“I avoided listening to anything during the process of writing and recording this album, choosing instead to be led by my own melodic voice, the one I now find myself with 30 years in,” says Alison.

“Guy Sigsworth returns me to a programmer’s world and marries it with perfect musicality. I’ve been waiting for him. We’ve made an album mindless of industry mores that apply to middle-aged women and have shunned all talk of audiences, demographics and advert jazz covers. This has easily been my happiest studio experience.”

Among the tracks are the album-opening Horizon Flame, with its panoramic strings and icy electronics; the big chorus and jerky, robotic R&B of Changeling; the punchy house/bass squelch of Right As Rain; and the darkly beautiful, emotionally-fraught torch song A Place To Stay.

Alison, 51, was born in Billericay to a French father and English mother and raised in Basildon. Having left school at 16, she began her musical journey in punk bands and on the Canvey Island pub rock scene. Her study of piano tuning came to an abrupt halt when Only You became a worldwide hit for Yazoo, the duo she formed with Vince Clarke after he placed an advert for a vocalist on leaving Depeche Mode.

Completely by accident, she found herself thrust into the spotlight of the mainstream pop world, nevertheless going on to sell 20 million records. She signed a solo deal with Columbia at 23; has won a series of Brit awards; sang at Live Aid at Wembley in 1985; and made her stage debut as prison matron Mama Morton in Chicago in the West End in 2001.

In 2002, she released Hometime, her first studio album in eight years, followed by the gold-selling Voice in 2004 and a return to the West End in 2006 in Smaller, co-starring in Kathy Burke’s production with Dawn French. Three songs that she wrote for the show appeared on her 2007 album The Turn.

Alison and Vince Clarke briefly reformed Yazoo in 2008 and 2009, performing songs they had never played previously in concert, culminating in a live album in 2010.

After presenting Rare And Obscured, a set of songs less visited, for three nights at Ronnie Scott’s in London last year, Alison is now preparing for a tour that will run from September 30 to October 31. The 2013 show will place The Minutes centre stage, supported by the “significant electronic material in her back catalogue”.

Aside from York Barbican, her only other Yorkshire date this autumn will be at Sheffield City Hall on October 8.