SINGER, songwriter and sage, David Ford is a man of many hats, some bought in his favourite York hatters, others of a musical variety.

The angsty pop one sat the least comfortably in his Easyworld days, since when his independent solo career has taken in band line-ups, female harmony singers, cutlery, coffee jar and kettle-switch percussion on a must-see Brooklyn kitchen video version of Go To Hell, alongside breathtaking use of live loop effects in his one-man shows.

Ever unpredictable, always outside the box, he has thrown a glorious curve ball by recording live in the studio with a string quartet. Piercing balladry (This Will All Count For Nothing; Fireworks; One Of These Days) rubs shoulders with Tom Waitsian junk-yard stomp (a cover of The Snake) before he slumps next to Shane McGowan in the saloon bar of life’s hard knocks in the scuffed romanticism of O’Sullivan’s Jukebox. Another Ford triumph.