IN a late addition to their autumn tour, Turin Brakes will play York on Wednesday, when Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian perform their Mercury Music Prize-nominated, platinum-selling debut album, The Optimist, from start to finish.

Released in 2001, the album combined shimmering acoustic guitars with summer-breeze vocal harmonies on such songs as Underdog (Save Me) and Emergency 72.

“We’ve never duplicated the sound of that first record,” says Gale. “It’s an iconic album.

We’ve since made records that have been just as good, but that one captured some sort of zeitgeist. On the surface it was melancholy, but underneath it was hopeful. That’s why we called it The Optimist.”

The NME magazine’s initial verdict has stood the test of time: “Here’s music for the twilight hours – feverish, contemplative, nostalgic.

It resonates with the force of a thousand passionate post-club conversations in darkened, smoke-filled rooms, of intense, doomed liaisons, of youthful arrogance undercut by fear and failure.”

As a thank-you to fans attending The Optimist Tour, Olly and Gale have recorded an EP for sale via the South Londoners’ website and at this month’s concerts.

Covers of Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, The Connells’ 74-75 and Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins are joined by a new Turin Brakes composition, Rescue Squad. “We’ve struck on an original to spice things up,” says Gale.

Tickets cost £18 on the Ticketweb website.