Pardon me, you may ask, but how come the so-called future of folk and redeemer of trad looks like something from Velvet Goldmine?

Since when, you may add, did it become normal to sing about bonny brown mares and goose-feather beds while sporting half the content of Claire's Accessories on your left eye?

Well, truth be told, Jim Moray isn't quite normal. But he does make beautiful sense.

Moray may have been brought up at folk festivals by his Morris-dancing parents but he also hit his teens during the height of Brit pop and his 20s at a time when electronic samples had become the bedroomartists' salvation.

When he stopped drumming in his friend's punk band, started performing solo and found "the songs coming out of my mouth were folk songs", Moray was never going to reach for the bar stool and the acoustic guitar. And, with brooding good looks and skinny swagger, he had no need for the Aran sweater, either.

From the 2003 release of his debut album Sweet England, which introduced English folk standards to modern dance, electronic and rock settings, Moray has been the pin-up boy of nu-folk.

Reflecting the record's attempt to "create an imaginary world for myself, one where the traditional folk lyrics I'd grown up hearing seemed to be appropriate", the sleeve pictured Moray swooning on a forest floor strewn with dusty tomes, having apparently been set upon by a pack of big black dogs. It recalled the morbidity of Nick Drake and the melodrama of Kate Bush and looked like an extravagant excuse for a missed essay deadline.

Moray had, in fact, written and recorded Sweet England while still at university in Birmingham, handing in the album as his final project. We're not sure what the examining board made of it but we do know it won him best album and best newcomer at 2004's Radio 2 Folk Awards, while critics hailed it as revolutionary.

"Divisions just don't exist on today's pop scene," explains Moray. "Radiohead are making albums which sound like they could be on Warp Records and the Basement Jaxx DJs are making things which sound like punk records.

So the "rock" bit of folk-rock encompasses so much for me now."

Backing his guitar and laptop with a three-piece band, Moray is now showcasing tracks from Sweet England's eagerly anticipated successor, which won't hit shelves until the end of the tour. Always drawn to the anguished drama of traditional songs, the new material, he says, will expose a "darker underbelly".

"I did say, if I could re-record Sweet England, I would leave out one or two of the more cheery tracks," he says.

"I've always had an ear for the melancholy songs and the new album is a lot more dark and more intense.

"Besides," he adds, "if I continue to do this for as long as I want to, I'll have time to sing gentle, light-hearted, olderperson songs."

Support comes from Dialect, who will release his ambitious debut album Sync.Chronic.City next month.