Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self Esteem) is a woman who very much ploughs her own glorious furrow, and luckily for us that furrow is coming through Newcastle this September.

Self Esteem’s deliriously good ‘A Complicated Woman’ album will undoubtedly be near the front of the queue when I’m dishing out my ‘Best Of The Year’ rosettes sometime around December. It’s an album fizzing over with shackles-off, mood-enhancing pop that feels unbound, even when Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s self-doubts come to the fore (“If I’m so empowered, why am I such a coward / If I’m so strong, why am I broken?” she asks on the album opener ‘I Do and I Don’t Care’). Danceable basslines are legion throughout, along with hyperpop grooves and the odd full-bodied choir, which she leads with plenty of dash. Self Esteem, of course, had her breakthrough album with her second long-player ‘Prioritise Pleasure’. It was a release that confirmed her status as one of the most idiosyncratic songwriters around and it was duly nominated for a Mercury Prize. Since then, she’s also appeared in the West End production of ‘Cabaret’ (as Sally Bowles) so she certainly knows how to work a stage. And I can’t wait to see her do just that when she lights up Newcastle this September. DP

Self Esteem, Thursday 18 September, O2 City Hall, Newcastle, 7pm, £41.50, academymusicgroup.com/o2cityhallnewcastle