Plumhall: 'We’ve just moved next door from folk world'

“I think most of the songs would work on a couple of acoustic guitars in a folk club,” says Nick Hall, her husband of 15 years. “It’s just that the temptation is there to dress them up in a more interesting way. Also then it puts a bit of pressure on us to perform them in a dynamic way which captures the sound of the record. It’s just keeping us on our toes, really.”

“And we love cross-pollination of genres,” adds Plum. “We love lots of different genres of music ourselves. I remember in the ’90s watching Beth Orton and she had a folk sensibility back then but she used electronica to augment that and I thought that was really exciting at the time.”

The duo’s contant gigging has helped their songwriting to evolve, Hall feels. “A lot of my favourite songwriters, like Nick Lowe, say that they write more and better when they’re on the move. You’re going to listen in to people’s conversations, you’re going to see an interesting sign or a beautiful name or hear a story on the radio or you might be inspired by someone else’s songwriting like being on tour with the Fairports (as Plumhall did in January). We wrote stuff as a result of being on that tour because we were inspired by them, they’re great musicians and great songwriters.”

“I get inspired melodically and rhythmically just by driving in the car,” says Plum. “When the indicator comes on I will write a song to that.”

The couple write both separately and together. “What tends to happen is Michelle will write something that’s completely hers and I’ll write something that’s completely mine,” says Hall, “but what tends to happen more these days is I will give Michelle some lyrics and she will put a tune to them and fiddle about with the lyrics and make them fit the tune, so we do quite a lot of collaboration like that.”

“Nick is very prolific in terms of lyric-writing and I have about 20 melodies an hour running through my head,” says Plum.

Hall points to the closing song That Final Shore as emblematic of the album’s main theme. “We didn’t want it to be a lockdown record, we didn’t want anyone to think it’s got an echo of doom and gloom or too much navel-gazing stuck inside for months sort of thing. I think there’s a theme of loss but looking for hope in loss, I think that runs through quite a lot of the record.”

“It’s looking beyond trouble to the horizon, I think,” adds Plum.

“We do tend to wallow in the doom and gloom a bit, so we wanted to try to make some genuinely uplifting songs on there as well,” says Hall. “We sort of forced ourselves to write happy songs.”

The couple will launch their album on a short tour with the singer-songwriter Iain Matthews of Matthews Southern Comfort fame. ​​​​​​​Although they’ve met before, Plum says this will be the first time that they have actually shared a stage. “We’re going to play, Iain’s going to do a longer set ​​​​​​​and then we’re going to do a little bit of collaboration at the end, which will be very nice,” says Hall.

One Star Awake is out now. Plumhall play at Cruck Barn, Appletreewick on June 21 and Seven Arts, Chapel Allerton, Leeds on June 23. https://www.plumhallmusic.com/