WITH third album In Plain Sight, Stina Tweeddale claims Honeyblood, the outfit she founded as a duo in 2012, as her own solo project.

Denser and more expansive than the strident grunge-pop of 2016’s Babes Never Die, In Plain Sight was written alone by Tweeddale while drummer Cat Myers toured with Mogwai and KT Tunstall.

“I was overjoyed for her,” says Tweeddale. “We weren’t touring an album, so when she got kept on for a full year of touring, I was thrilled for her.

“Meanwhile I was at home writing, very much alone. When she came back, I was like: ‘I’ve written this record, without you’. I think it made sense for her too because by that time she was already being offered all sorts of other things. It was sad to part ways with her but this opportunity opened itself up into something amazing.”

That something amazing was working with John Congleton, a producer Tweeddale had long admired for his work with the likes of St Vincent, Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten.

“He was at the top of my list,” Tweeddale says. “I enjoy his idea of making guitars not sound like guitars, which is something

you really hear with St Vincent.

Me and my manager asked if he was up for it, and we thought he wouldn’t be able to do it as he’s so busy.

“He was like: ‘I have got a space of 12 days. If you can do your album in 12 days, you can have that space.’ I was like: ‘Great, because I don’t do albums that take more than 12 days.’ I did it in nine days. I don’t like working slow, I need to work as fast as possible and he’s like that too – it was a perfect pairing in that sense.”

Working with the producer over Halloween in 2018, Tweeddale relished breaking free from Honeyblood’s old guitar/drums format.

“I wasn’t sitting in the studio when I was recording it wondering how I was going to play things live,” she says.

“That was something that really shaped the last album. With this record, I just did a 360 and threw everything up in the air and started something partly new.”

She adds: “Honeyblood is so tied to my identity and personality – it really is; I write, I sing, I did all the visuals for the last two albums. I realise that maybe I was kidding myself that it was more of a band situation.”

Tweeddale introduces her new live band to Scots at the forthcoming Stag and Dagger Festival in Glasgow before playing an instore at the city’s Monorail record shop and continuing to tour with fellow grungey hard-grafters LUCIA, whose latest single Blueheart was produced by Arctic Monkeys and Adele collaborator Jim Abbiss.

May 5, Stag and Dagger Festival, Glasgow, £27.50. Tickets: bit.ly/StagDagger2019

May 24, Monorail, Glasgow (instore); May 31, Aberdeen Lemon Tree; Jun 1, Beat Generator Live, Dundee; Jun 3, Summerhall, Edinburgh. In Plain Sight is released on May 24 via Marathon Artists. www.honeyblood.co.uk