DAVID Ford cuts out the middle man these days in promoting his latest album.

"So here's the thing: I have a new record coming out in May that I think has quite an interesting story behind it," he said in a warm, speculative email to The Press's arts reporter.

"Having become obsessed with the financial crisis of a decade ago, I inadvertently spent two years studying macroeconomics before writing an album about the modern economy and its ideological shortcomings. I would be delighted to tell you more about the record and its subsequent tour, which is not stopping in York but will be going to Pocklington Arts Centre. Is that in your jurisdiction?"

Indeed it is, and so Ford, an Eastbourne singer, songwriter with piercing skills of social observation, will be promoting the long-promised Animal Spirits at Pock tonight and Leeds Brudenell Social Club on June 2.

Four years since his last album, it finally arrived on May 11 on the One Horse label, its release coinciding with Ford touring solo in the United States. "I'm in New York at the moment, arriving in Philadelphia next," he said, on the eve of Animal Spirits' release.

"I played the Rockwood Music Hall last night, where they run it festival style, which means you don't get a soundcheck, when my show is quite complicated to set up, otherwise it collapses...and last night it collapsed."

Ford's Pocklington show will be a one-man band outing too. "This time I thought I'd keep it simple, or complicated in a one-man show kind of way. It'll be a wildly elaborate show, like in the USA, but back home I'll have the benefit of being able to set things up.

"I'll have a lot more stuff to put on stage, rather than piecing it together as I have to in the States, where I essentially just fill a rucksack with as much as I can, but because I've been coming over for so long, I have friends I can store things with. Arrive at JFK, drive round to friends, collect things, then hopefully the tour can start!"

York Press:

"I've had to write about econimics in a metaphorical way," says David Ford

The independent-spirited troubadour in Ford means he has not fretted over Animal Spirits taking longer than first expected to see the light of day. "Coming out when it has is a reality that I'm absolutely fine with," he says. "For me, the defining point of the record is not the moment of release. That's just an arbitrary point. The point of it is getting the recording done; releasing it is the grubby part of it.

"I've been busy with being a dad, taking a year off to be a dad at home with my daughter, and having to go back to work now, finding a balance has been a challenge when work has to be all consuming. I find it difficult not to be consumed by that process, but I now have a little girl that I'm consumed by too, and I realised that something had to give as I couldn't give everything to both.

"I'll change my approach to work, without lowering my workrate, but the job of being a parent is the most important. The stakes are much higher."

Ford, who turned 40 last Wednesday, has made his most provocative album yet in Animal Spirits. "I've always written songs with a political bent. I've not set out to do that deliberately but I write songs about things that I consider to be important, and sometimes you watch the news and become excited or bothered by what you see, by the politics, and so I gravitate to it as a subject," he says.

"And the more I've thought about politics and the state of the world, which is an overarching subject, I go back to trying to understand where we are as a species, if that's not too grandiose for a songwriter.

"I kept coming back to the economy, which is why I first wrote It's The Economy, Stupid, writing about who gets rich from it and how they consolidate their power by acquiring more and more capital. That led me to thinking about economic theories, and how people believe in the economic system as though they're believing in religion and will not hear arguments to the contrary. At the same time, there are entirely opposing economic beliefs but both sides will be respected even though one or the other has to be wrong."

As a subject, economics does not suit songwriting, suggests Ford, "so I've had to write in a metaphorical way. Rather than writing about economics, I've written around economics, talking about universal themes and how the way we think is illustrated in economics: where vanity comes into it; where greed comes into, but where romantic, whimsical ideas come into it too."

David Ford plays Pocklington Arts Centre tonight, supported by Kathryn Williams, 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk. Also playing Leeds Brudenell Social Club, June 2; brudenellsocialclub.co.uk​.