CANADIAN duo Madison Violet will begin their UK tour with a date in Barnoldswick next week.

The award-winning pair - Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac - will be embarking on an acoustic tour to promote their new album The Knight Sessions which features stripped back versions of some of their earlier songs plus new material.

“I suppose we’re getting back to the songs and the songwriting,” said Brenley. “It’s really fun to go out with a band but it’s nice to have a record which works for us as a duo. We do play a number of instruments on our own, so it’’ll be kind of nice to get back to the roots of the songs.”

Madison Violet have been together 17 years and in that time have built up a devoted fanbase across Europe.

“It’s great to be coming back to the UK,” said Brenley. “We did a short tour last fall but before that it was quite a while ago. I think the majority of fans over there got to know us through our albums although we have supported Gretchen Peters, Suzy Bogguss and the Hothouse Flowers in the past.”

The duo’s intricate harmonies are at the heart of their music along with haunting melodies and heartfelt lyrics.

“That’s the things that make people want to take it home,” said Brenley. “You can have a good lyric but if the whole song is not something that resonates, they are not going to remember it.

“We want to make an emotional attachment through a song.

“What I’m always learning as songwriter is the deeper you dig inside yourself to find whatever it is and if can then get that out on paper, that is when people connect.”

Brenley and Lisa have worked with other songwriters but they have found that they always work best with each other.

“We have gone down to Nashville and written with these people who have had huge hits and you get excited about the idea,” said Brenley. “But when you come back home with those songs you find you don’t like them because you don’t connect to them.

“I can’t deliver a song with any kind of conviction if I don’t have my own story in it.”

Brenley and Lisa’s partnership survived the breakdown of their own relationship.

“For the first 10 years we were pretty much in a marriage and for the next seven years we’ve still been on the road together which some people find hard to understand.

“Certainly the first year we broke up it was arduous and difficult. But we sort of leaned into the best we find in one another and didn’t worry about the other stuff. It really has always been about the way we harmonise and the way write together and we didn’t want to lose that.

“We couldn’t stay working together just because we need to tour or make money for the sake of it.”

For their show on Tuesday night the duo will be supported by rising Ribble Valley singer/songwriter Indigo Rose.

Madison Violet with support from Indigo Rose, Barnoldswick Music and Arts Centre, Tuesday, May 2. Details from 01282 813374 or www.barnoldswickmusicandartscentre.com