ROCHDALE soul singer Lisa Stansfield will return to the York concert stage on September 12, this time switching to the Barbican.

Lisa played the Grand Opera House last June, when she introduced songs from her long-awaited upcoming album, as well as performing such Eighties and Nineties hits as All Around The World, Change, Live Together and Never, Never Gonna Give You Up from her 25-year back catalogue.

The album, Seven, came out last Monday, entering the charts at number 13 at the weekend. Taking its title from being 47-year-old Lisa’s seventh studio set, it features her first new recordings in ten years.

Now she is to promote Seven this September on a ten-date tour, when York Barbican will be Lisa’s only Yorkshire date.

The album was written and recorded with long-time songwriting partner Ian Devaney.

“It’s a soul record and while it is eclectic, there is a thread running through it,” says Lisa. “A lot of the record is about the trap that a woman has got herself into – an unrequited, doomed or mismatched love – and how to get herself out of it, if she can.”

The songs reinforce Lisa’s gift for creating identifiable characters and memorable stories within her lyrics.

“I think we all suffer the same pain, all feel the same happiness, and we all have the same emotions within us,” she says. “My life isn’t very racy or exciting, so I make things up, tell stories. I like telling stories.”

• Tickets go on sale on Friday at 10am online at gigsandtours.com and yorkbarbican.co.uk and on 0844 811 0051 and 0844 854 2757.