IN an era where music is increasingly downloaded, The Leisure Society, who make their second appearance at Clitheroe’s Grand Theatre tomorrow, continue to fly the flag for the 20th century.

While you can buy their latest album, Alone Aboard the Ark, digitally, the folk-pop band with a distinguished style would prefer it if you bought the physical album.

“We have this quite old fashioned romantic vision of people huddled over their hi-fi equipment listening to it,” said frontman Nick Hemming.

“When I was a kid I was into Sixties’ music. I was passionate about The Kinks, The Who and The Jam. I loved all the old artwork, especially the seven and 12 inch records, and I liked the way tracks and songs stuck together to form a full album.

“You could immerse yourself in a vinyl product, and there is a significant difference, a certain warmth you can’t copy when you record digitally.”

An increasingly prominent name in the Leisure Society story, Ray Davies, the former Kinks singer and songwriter, invited them to perform at his Meltdown mini-festival as well as joining them for a live video recording.

“We recorded our last album (Alone Aboard The Ark) at Konk, Ray Davies’ studio in London,” added Nick. “It was a surreal experience, meeting one of my musical heroes.

“I’m a huge Kinks fan so to have someone who has influenced my life so much working on our album was incredible.

“One morning I was just sitting there with a mug of tea chatting to Ray Davies about music. How mad is that?”

The eight-piece Leisure Society have been stirring up hot press over the past few years, since their self-released album The Sleeper in 2009.

A track from that album, earned songwriter Hemming a nomination for the Ivor Novello British song-writing award, and they performed in York Minster Cathedral alongside the most talked-about female in British folk, Laura Marling.

“It was so different to anything we’ve done,” said Nick.

“York Minster was really intimidating — it felt like there was a five or six second echo.”

Nick says the band is looking forward to their Clitheroe return.

“The violin player’s grandma lives in Clitheroe and we loved it last time.

“We expected it to be a quiet little town but it was a really vibrant place and The Grand was amazing.

“There was a feeling of something really good happening there.”

  • The Leisure Society plus support from solo artist Sweet Bamboo. Clitheroe Grand, Friday, November 29. Details from 01200 421599