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West Yorkshire's best

SKY Larkin's new album Motto was written all over the world, demo-ed in Sheffield and recorded in Seattle - but there's a little bit of Northern Ireland on there too.

A picture of one of the 'Giant's Eyes' rock formations at the Giant's Causeway is one of the many eye-catching photographs in the album inlay - taken by singer/ guitarist Katie Harkin while on a trip to her father's homeland. "I'm going to have to tell my nan I'm talking to someone at a Belfast newspaper, because my dad's a Belfast boy," she says. "I took that photo when I went over to visit my family the last time, so there's a little slice of Northern Ireland in there. I definitely need to come back and visit and we hope to play there next year."

Motto is Sky Larkin's third album and arguably their most guitar-heavy record to date, with the dazzling title track, Loom, Carve It Out and forthcoming new single Newsworthy among the standouts.

Since the last album Kaleide came out in 2010, Katie toured with Wild Beasts for the best part of two years and wrote songs throughout that period, before fleshing them out with the band when she got back to Yorkshire.

The band then decamped to Seattle to record with long-term collaborator and producer John Goodmanson (Girls, Sleater Kinney, Los Campesinos!). "If you can get to the States as a band, you can find all this equipment and space for a lot less money. You go to London and if the Beatles had a cup of tea [in the studio] once it's twice as expensive as it should be," says Katie. "The writing process was so punctuated by the touring I was doing with Wild Beasts, so going back to John - someone we really trust - felt like a stabilising move."

Along with fellow founding member Nestor Matthews, Katie also enlisted Sam Pryor on bass and Nile Marr - son of indie legend and ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny - on guitar. Interestingly, the guitars on Italics sound a lot like Modest Mouse, the American indie-rockers who counted Marr senior as a member for a couple of years. "It was fun to have Nile on the record. But both Sam and Nile have their own projects, so they can't tour with us," says Katie.

The band will share the stage with another indie institution in December when they're on the same bill as The Wedding Present at the celebrated Brudenell Social Club venue in Leeds. "The Wedding Present are one of those bands you always knew about and as a music fan you make an effort to work out the heritage of where you're from. I never thought I'd actually be able to interact with them somehow, so that'll be great." Sky Larkin plan to tour a lot next year and Katie says she never tires of gigging. "For these new songs that have been brewing for a while, it's nice to get to share them with people and that's the whole point of it; that's where the songs breathe."

She says title track Motto - with its all-guitars-blazing outro - has been going down well live. But they are yet to tackle the stunning album closer Que Linda, a stripped-back keyboard-led tune with haunting vocals from Katie.

Orders of new single Newsworthy on the band's website (and via Wichita Recordings), meanwhile, will receive a specially curated Newsworthy newspaper, created and edited by the band.

* Motto is out now on Wichita. For tour updates, visit SkyLarkinSkyLarkin.tumblr.com.