WHEREAS politicians may be economical with the truth, David Ford is truthful with the economics on his new album Animal Spirits.

|Newly returned from an American tour, the Eastbourne singer, songwriter and one-man band is doing the rounds in support of a record that puts a human face to the cost of economic policies.

Ford is a master of economy himself, touring alone and pretty much making a band a luxury in these days of self-promotion, going from town to town like a troubadour with his wares and his warnings, yet still hopeful that love will seep through the gaps in the broken windows.

He beats a regular path to these parts in his trademark tilted tifter, whether Selby Town Hall, a York House Concert, Pocklington's Platform Festival or Pock Arts Centre, and on this occasion he brought along Mercury-nominated Kathyrn Williams, whose gig map has similar pins in place.

Just Williams would have been a gig in itself, so to see her in an impromptu support slot was a double scoop of joy, with her short acoustic set cherry-picked from her Sylvia Plath album, Hypoxia, a Leonard Cohen cover (Bird On A Wire) and the looped finale, Little Black Numbers.

York Press:

The Magic Numbers: rebel songs

Ford watched his friend incognito from the side seats and made a similarly quiet entrance, taking up his position inside a circle of myriad instruments: guitars, mouth organ, drum pads, assorted percussion, keyboards, loop pedals and microphones. That circle would not be broken – Ford doesn't believe in encores, like Elvis and Dolly Parton before him – until all his energy, his alchemy, was spent.

If you want to see why live music matters so much more than records, watch Ford go about his exhilarating, exhausting, emphatic stage business, whether showcasing Animal Spirits' title track, horny blues Real Damn Slow and devastating closing ballad I've Lost More Than I Ever Thought I Would Hold or taking signature song State Of The Union to new heights yet again.

Like Ford, The Magic Numbers have made a habit of "putting the rock into Pock", as well as bigger venues, and a full house greeted their return with new album Outsiders in pink vinyl on the merch stall. Frontman and guitarist Romeo Stodart already had accompanied stripe-topped Salford support act Ren Harvieu before he and bassist sister Michele, drummer Sean Gannon and keyboard-playing sister Angela assembled beneath a banner backdrop that read: This Is Our Music. These Are Rebel Songs. Are You In Or Out?

It may be harder to feel rebellious when you're sitting down at a gig, but the rebel spirit, the outsider credo, is alive and kicking in this sublime London band, especially in the new numbers Ride Against The Wind and Runaways.

"Old friends" Lost Forever, Hymn For Her and Shot In The Dark were mighty oaks too, and as a divine cover of kindred spirit Neil Young's Harvest Moon sent us into the night, were we in or out? In, of course.