TEXAN roots musician Carson McHone will play The Basement, City Screen, York, on February 4 and the Adelphi, Hull, the next night on her nine-date tour.

The Austin alt.country singer and songwriter will be promoting her second album, Carousel, released next Friday on the Loose label as the follow-up to 2015's Goodluck Man.

Working with Spoon and Patty Griffin's producer, Mike McCarthy, McHone has made a darker record, taking inspiration from Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground and 20th century American novelist Thomas Wolfe in songs that combine world-weary lyricism with gauzy indie-Americana and stomping honky-tonk.

"There was a time when I wanted to champion traditional country, mostly because I wasn’t hearing it in what was being called ‘country’," she says. "I think a lot of roots-influenced artists feel the need to defend tradition in this way. Today though, I want to do more with the form, push myself past where I understand it to be."

Carousel embraces McHone's roots, singing in bars in her teens and riding her horse bareback along south Austin's side streets, weaving through traffic and empty parking lots to find space to "open up". Simultaneously, she looks to her musical future too.

"The art I’m making would be lacking if I were to stick to a specific genre," she reasons. "Carousel is more modern, which is where my interests lie these days, and where my writing is taking me. At the end of the day, it has to be the song that dictates."

Tickets for McHone's 8pm gigs in York and Hull are on sale at seetickets.com/event/carson-mchone/.