THE poster in the City Screen café bar is unusually detailed and all the more enticing for its promise of “An intimate evening with Scotland’s second favourite arch-miserablist and ex-Arab Strap vocalist… “…Hopefully uplifting, quietly depressing, Malcolm Middleton will perform a collection of comforting wintry acoustic songs about love, hate, death, and other stuff,” it states.

Tomorrow is Malcolm Middleton’s “Long, Dark Night” in York, a nocturnal outpouring of his mordant wit in the underground gloom of The Basement at City Screen as part of his 12 nights of winter misery. Aptly, like a latter-day Ebenezer Scrooge, he will be keeping his own company, solely Malcolm and his acoustic guitar.

“Basically that “arch-miserablist” tag for the tour came from me always being described as being one, and part of the thinking is that I’ve been touring a lot with a band and I thought I’d play to my strengths and go out with all guns blazing and play a long, dark night of depressing songs – though to me they’re uplifting.”

So why, Malcolm, are you nailed down as being a miserable songwriter? “Some people get the humour and humanity of my songs, and others just want to hear cheesy pop, but then people listen to blues music and they don’t go on about that being depressing, do they?”

Touring alone has allowed him to take relaxed attitude to rehearsing. “Rehearsals? None. The tour starts on the Tuesday and no doubt on the Monday, I’ll think, ‘S***’!” he said, ahead of the opening night last month.

Malcolm can pick and choose from five solo albums cum psychiatric reports, the latest being issued this summer with the frankest of press releases penned by Malcolm himself. He memorably declared he would be taking a break from making records in the world-weary singer-songwriter mould of Waxing Gibbous because “maybe I’m sick of the sound of my own voice”.

Reflecting now on such disarming candour, he says: “It’s like a continuation of how I write songs. I don’t want someone writing a press release that says ‘Malcolm returns triumphantly’. My statement may not have been the best thing to do but it was honest at the time…and I’m sticking to the decision.

“Come January 1 2010, I’m going to step away from this type of songwriting. I’ve always kept notebooks, writing my thoughts through the year, and I feel I’ve become a bit of a caricature of myself, sitting there with a pen and paper and knowing there’s going to be a song at the end.”

At the same, however, says Malcolm, he is still excited about music: “I want to try new things. I’ve been recording looped electric and acoustic guitars and electronics, doing that at home just for fun, not worrying about lyrics or song structures, rather than thinking ‘this has to be for an album’.

“With Arab Strap I was always more relaxed whereas with my solo work it’s been about sticking to the confines of indie pop/rock and I don’t regret that as I love pop melodies – and yes I will come back to it, as I grew up with things like Simon & Garfunkel, but I’ll only come back to it when I have something new to say.”

What will be his mood tomorrow, in his final week of shows before taking his career in a new direction? "I think I'll be quite humorous and happy and the whole idea of promoting this tour is tongue in cheek, but the point is, I can reflect on songs that I wrote in darker times - and I can't imagine having got through those dark moments without the humour," says Malcolm.

Wherever Malcolm Middleton heads next, one question remains to be answered: if he is Scotland’s “second favourite arch-miserablist”, who holds the top spot? “Well…I’m not sure but I didn’t want to take that heavy responsibility on myself!” he says.

Malcolm Middleton’s “Long, Dark Night”, The Basement, City Screen, York, tomorrow at 8pm. Box office: 0871 704 2054 or www.picturehouses.co.uk