TORONTO troubadour Ron Sexsmith can't stop travelling.

Only last December the cherubic-faced Canadian played the Leeds Irish Centre to promote his sixth album Cobblestone Runway, since when his travels have taken him far and wide, supporting Coldplay and latterly on his own to Japan. Tonight, another day, another runway, another country, he finds himself at Fibbers in York, playing solo.

How come he is back in Britain?

"I don't know really how to answer that," says Ron. "I've been on this endless tour since September; I've just done Australia and New Zealand and Japan, where my album only came out in February, and I got booked to play two days at the Cambridge Folk Festival this summer.

"So while I'm over here I'm filling in the gaps with English and Welsh dates, Wrexham, York and Sheffield, and after Cambridge I'm doing eight or nine dates in Ireland."

No time for song writing, you may think, but think again.

"I've got over 30 new songs ready, and I'll be going into the studio from August 4 to 12," says the prolific Ron, who so enjoyed making Cobblestone Runway at Electric Earth East in London that he will be recording in London again.

"I'm gonna do two records, one in London, the other in Canada, because I have two batches of very different songs. "There'll be very poppy songs on one, so I want to record again with Martin Swedish producer Martin Terefe as everyone thought I was gonna make my breakthrough with Cobblestone Runway, after the work he did on that.

"Then I'll do one in Canada that'll be more 'woodsy', something like a Gordon Lightfoot record, that'll have a very stripped down, warm feel."

Ron is yet to put this idea to his record company:"I don't know what they'll say to that plan but we'll see."

"I'd like to produce the second record myself, or maybe my drummer, Don Kerr, who does a lot of recording with indie bands around Toronto."

Tom Waits released two albums simultaneously last year; Bruce Springsteen did so in 1992 with Human Touch and Lucky Town; Simple Minds in 1981 with Sons And Fascination and Sister Feelings Call.

"I just thought ideally the record company could put them in one package; they could promote one and the other could be there as a bonus for the fans," says Ron.

"I've got all these songs and I just don't want to have to wait, as I'll be writing more songs all the time!"

Aiming for the stars, he harbours one surprising ambition: "I have this desire to record with Olivia Newton-John. She's kinda like Karen Carpenter, someone with a real pure voice and no attitude."

She's the one that he wants.

Tickets: £12.50 in advance from Fibbers; £14 door

Updated: 12:14 Friday, July 18, 2003