CULT folk singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan will make her Band Room debut at Low Mill, Farndale, on October 11 in the week she releases Heartleap as her first album in nine years.

Such a gap since Lookaftering in 2005 would seem a long hiatus in conventional music circles, but Vashti took 35 years to follow up her debut album, 1970's Just Another Diamond Day.

Like Nick Drake's Bryter Later, the record was beautifully produced by Joe Boyd and arranged by Robert Kirby and sold poorly, despite the involvement of Fairport Convention and The Incredible String Band members, discouraging her from continuing her career.

Reissued in 2000 after Vashti's 30 years in the wilderness – decades spent bringing up her children in Scotland – Just Another Diamond Day made number 53 in the Observer Music monthly’s top 100 British albums of all time and its title track was thrust into the spotlight by its use in T-Mobile bouncing man advert.

Vashti, 69 this year, is adamant Heartleap will be the final album from "the Godmother of Psychedelic Folk". She recorded the ten songs largely in her Edinburgh home studio, breaking free from past frustrations by being in control of the whole creative process for the first time, from writing and arranging to playing and recording.

Whereas Lookaftering favoured Max Richter’s bold production and guest contributions from Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Vetiver and Adem, Heartleap is more personal.

"It feels far closer to the vision I set out to realise," says Vashti, as she looks ahead to the album's October 6 release on Fat Cat Records.

In her first tour since 2010, she will be playing only five shows, one in Birmingham, two at St Pancras Church in London, one in a Manchester church and by far the smallest at The Band Room's tin shed on the North York Moors, in the company of guitarist Gareth Dickson. More dates will be added for early 2015.

Vashti is one of a trio of "the finest female singers in the world" signed up by Band Room promoter Nigel Burnham for the autumn.

Tiny Ruins, who played with Crowded House's Neil Finn on his 2014 tour, will arrive on September 5, followed by Vermont singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell in her third visit to Low Mill on November 7. Tickets are available on 01751 432900 or at thebandroom.co.uk