IS Steven James Adams Britain's grumpiest songwriter on matters of the heart, or could the bittersweet tide be turning?

After years of songs of broken hope, heartbreak and heartache in The Broken Family Band and Singing Adams, Adams has gone solo on this month's House Music album, supported by tour dates that deliver him, all alone, to The Basement at City Screen, York, on Saturday night.

"I could say that I hadn't noticed so many of my songs were about men and women failing in love, but I've liked writing about that stuff because it just seems to flow," Steven says. "But I've got to the point where I've done enough man and woman, boy and girl stuff and I need to stretch myself."

Given his wit and perception in summing up love gone wrong, he is being harsh on himself when he says "it is easy stuff to write about". More tellingly, however, he draws a line in the sand: "I can't remember the last time I was miserable in love," he thinks aloud.

The signature song on House Music, Tears Of Happiness, would indicate as much, coinciding as it does with Steven's changing status on the home front.

"I have my first child now. He was around for a lot of the recording, as I made the record mostly at home," says Steven, speaking from that home in Walthamstow, London. "It's a great leveller, having a child.

"It's too early to say if he's had an influence on my song-writing; things usually take a couple of years to settle in, so apart from a couple of lines, there's nothing overt on there, other than being aware that I have this responsibility for this amazing little man now," he says. "And I'm enjoying that responsibility. I don't like feeling feckless."

Steven had come to the crossroads in his musical progression too, making the decision to bring out an album of country blues under his own name for the first time.

"I do see the significance in it being a solo album," he says.

"I've been in bands as long as I can remember and that can be crutch, which can be a good thing, but sometimes isn't. It was the record label that suggested I should make a solo record and it just felt the right thing to stick my head above the parapet."

He jests that "there's a lot more glory for me now", but more seriously acknowledges that the experience has been liberating.

"To me, it was a combination of circumstances that ended Singing Adams. We were all coming to the point where we were thinking, 'Actually, where are we taking this?'. I had a kid on the way and we were moving to different parts of town [London]," he says.

"I said I was thinking about taking a break from it and no-one stood up against that. I knew I didn't want to drag it out in the way that The Broken Family dragged on for too long...but then I'll probably get bored of being me soon and have a very awkward conversation with myself about where I'm going."

While House Music is a solo record, it was not made alone. Instead, recording sessions at home were complemented by further sessions in his old stamping ground of Cambridge, reuniting with his former partner in the band Hofman, Neil Rogers, the album's co-producer.

There are contributions too from Dan Mangan, all the way from Vancouver; vocalists Emily Barker and Inge Thomson; Lau's Martin Green; Devon folk guitarist John Smith; and Justin Young, of The Vaccines, who he contacted through a friend of a friend.

Steven duly "made music exactly the way I wanted, with people I love dearly and no compromises", but with its roots in his Walthamstow home, which explains the album title. "I wanted to make a record in my house with this great sitting room that's quite big, so I proposed the 'House Music' title to the record company, who said, 'Oh, yes, if you must' and then it got dismissed," he says.

"Though I have had a few people pick up the CD and say 'I don't want it if it's dance music' It's not. Darts music, maybe."

• Please Please You presents Steven James Adams, supported by Boss Caine, in The Basement, City Screen, York, on Saturday, 8pm. Tickets: £8 on 0871 902 5726 or at thebasementyork.co.uk or £10 on the door. Steven James Adams's House Music is out now on The State51 Conspiracy label.