MANNINGTREE singer/songwriter Kevin Pearce has never been one to rest on his musical laurels.

He’s back this month, with what promises to be another barnstorming performance, at his spiritual home, the Colchester Arts Centre, this time promoting his soon-to-be released new album.

Although So On isn’t due out until December, the gig will give fans plenty of opportunity to hear the new work weeks before it comes out.

By his own admittance So On is the culmination of what has gone before yet at the same time is a more focused and distilled version of Kevin’s eclectic approach to music making. This time there’s no accompanying book, no second disc of remixes: but that’s not to say Kevin has reined in his imagination or sacrificed any of is creativity.

He says: “I think now, especially on this record, and the stuff I’ve written since, for me it’s about putting a bit more energy into the music. Like how Motown was great songs, great rhythms. It’s kind of like that idea. Rhythm was kind of the bedrock of the album.”

Once again Dean Honer, of I. Monster fame, is involved.

The pair have been working together since 2010, first on an album with fellow I Monster’s Jarrod Gosling, released under the moniker Skywatchers. The following year, Dean produced Kevin’s solo debut, the self-released Pocket Handkerchief Lane.

In 2013 the partnership was at the heart of an ambitious pair of concept albums: Matthew Hopkins and the Wormhole Act 1 was a song cycle loosely based around a reimagined take on the life and work of the 17th Century East Anglian witch-hunter, while Act 2 featured Honer’s reinterpretations of Kevin’s songs.

The following year the ever-ambitious singer-songwriter released Dynamite, an album accompanied by a

graphic novel he had written, the song lyrics and the story in the book complementing and weaving around one another. Dean was again involved, as he is with Kevin’s latest work, So On.

The record’s themes may at first appear scattered or diffuse. There are songs about mental illness; about Britain’s housing crisis and exploitative landlords; even one about the opera singer Maria Callas. But what unites them is a sense of the personal and an intention to provide help, advice and support.

“Hopefully the topics are things people are going through themselves,” Kevin says, “or have experienced, and they can get something out of it. Maybe someone’s dealing with some of these things, or going through an experience. We’re all going through elements or shades of pain. If you can help one person with a song, then you’ve done your job.”

Kevin Pearce is at the Colchester Arts Centre on Thursday, October 12. With support by Megan Henwood, tickets are available from the box office on 01206 500900 or on-line at www.colchesterartscentre.com