Duncan Seaman

At rehearsals for her imminent tour, Katy J Pearson is bubbling with excitement over the reception for third album Someday, Now when The Yorkshire Post catches up with her.

Richard Archer looks like a relieved man as he assesses the past 12 months since his band Hard-Fi set out on a musical comeback. He freely admits that last autumn when they staged their first UK tour in over a decade they “didn’t really have a plan” for where it might lead.

As indie music fans developed a taste for gothic rock in the mid-1980s, Balaam and the Angel were one of those that flourished. Following the success of the EPs World of Light and Love Me on their own label, Chapter 22, they were courted by Virgin and found an audience in the US, where they toured with The Mission and Iggy Pop.

Simon Bartholomew, long-serving guitarist with the Brand New Heavies, is about to go out to an exercise class when The Yorkshire Post catches up with him on a video call. “I’m working on looking fine and fit as a fiddle for the tour,” he explains.

As he limbers up for his band Skylights’ biggest ever show in their home city, guitarist Turnbull Smith is in reflective mood. After a successful year in 2023 following the release of their album What You Are, the four-piece from York looked poised to make further progress in 2024. However, the last 10 months have not panned out as they had hoped.

James Lavelle’s long-running project creates a club vibe in an industrial setting in Armley.

As preparations step up for this year’s Youth Music Awards ceremony at Troxy in London, nominees could look at Jessie Marcella as an object lesson in what winners can go on to achieve.

Fresh from landing their second Number One album of the year, Shed Seven have announced their biggest ever headline show in their home county.

Formed in Leeds in 1978, Soft Cell would go on to become arguably the most subversive English synth-pop duo to grace the charts in the 1980s. Marc Almond and Dave Ball’s debut hit, a reworking of the Gloria Jones Northern Soul number Tainted Love, sold millions of copies worldwide and they would enjoy further success with songs such as Bedsitter, Torch and Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.

Cocteau Twins’ collaboration with the American ambient composer Harold Budd was something of a fleeting moment in both their catalogues. Nonetheless, looking back almost four decades on, Robin Guthrie says he still has “strong recollections” of them working together.