THEY may come from opposite sides of the world but Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan have found a shared love for music - and each other.

The couple, who have been playing together for over 15 years, will be kicking off a series of UK dates with a show in Barnoldswick tomorrow, launching their new Unplugged album.

“At every gig we play we always get fans come up and ask ‘have you got something that sounds like exactly like you’ve done?’" said New Zealand born multi-instrumentalist Jamie. “We’ve always had to say ‘no, but we’ve got some wonderful studio albums which we have put our heart and souls into’.”

Jamie and award-winning Scottish singer Emily, have been working hard on a new studio album but broke off from that to record the live ‘unplugged’ album.

“We’d done a gig the night before we recorded it,” said Jamie, “so we just set up with a couple of microphones in the studio and did what we’d done the night before. It was all done in an afternoon and I have to say we are delighted with the results.

“It’s a funny thing, you can spend a lot of time on some albums and others, like this, just fit together quite nicely.”

The Unplugged album features a couple of new songs which will feature on the next studio album but is primarily made up of favourites from Emily and Jamie’s live shows.

“Now finally, when people ask us that question, we have something for them,” he laughed.

Jamie has written the bulk of the songs for the new studio album and the sound is distinctly more Americana than traditional folk.

“I think that’s partly because I’m a Kiwi,” he said. “No-one really knows what kind of music comes out of New Zealand. But we love stuff with harmonies and the new songs are pretty much the two of us singing in harmony together.

“It’s quite nice to focus more on that and the lyrics rather than the instrumentation.

“You will find that with a lot of traditional Scottish bands the instrumentation is such a big part of the song but I love the simpler sound that comes out of Nashville, they set the vocals much higher up in the mix so that it’s not hard to hear the lyrics.”

Although they have sung together for so long, the current tour marks a first for Jamie and Emily - it will be the first time that they will be taking their two children - aged four and two - out on the road with them.

“Out of necessity we did tour the world with child number one and a nanny,” said Jamie. “And we made a conscious decision to, in effect, take a year out after each of them was born. As parents you want to enjoy those young moments while you can without disrupting your career too much. But now we’re sort of returning to touring and it’s going to be fun.

“There’s nothing like playing music with the person you’ve been making music with for over 15 years. I think the hard part for us on this tour is making sure that the chat at the gigs is not all about the kids.”

Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan, Barnoldswick Music and Arts Centre, Thursday, April 12. Details from 01282 813374