“One of the most amazing gigs I’ve ever done,” is how Scott Matthews describes playing the Minack in May.

“After six or seven songs the sun set switched on the magic meter.

“I felt very blessed to have the chance to do it. That part of the world is magical. It’s going to take some beating!”

The Princess Pavilion can’t really compete with the iconic amphitheatre but it will host the singer songwriter on September 22 as he plays his new album The Great Untold.

This is his sixth album in a highly unusual career that started with meteoric success, straight out of the blocks. Elusive from his first album Passing Stranger won an Ivor Novello award for best song, musically and lyrically.

That same year he was asked to support the Foo Fighters.

Then came a call from “a quarter of Led Zeppelin”, he laughs. Fellow Wolverhampton-born musician Robert Plant invited him on tour.

This is no ordinary start to musical life.

“I just think I can’t quite believe I’ve come this far. I still remember the first time people sang my song back to me. I was playing Passing Stranger in Belfast and it’s the only time I backed off the mic. I was overwhelmed.”

This is Scott’s second tour of the year. He recorded the majority of the new material in his new ‘shedio’, a log cabin at home that is his studio, on his own label, although he recorded in a couple of rural churches, too.

“You need to be more sensible when you have your own label. It forces you to make good of the equipment you’ve got. The different air and presence of a room and a church, how the sound comes back to you, gives you production ideas.”

The sound of the new album is more like his early work with haunting melancholy, emotive acoustics and soul searching lyrics. He quotes Miles Davis when he says, “it’s about the sense of space. The notes you don’t play are as important as the ones you do.”

This sense of space runs through the album like an echo and for this tour he has chosen to play more ethereal places such as churches as they better suit the new songs.

The Pavilion is the exception but he’s looking forward to it. “I remember the first Falmouth show I played. There were 300 in the audience on my very first visit and it felt lovely.

“Bloody hell, what a place to live! That end of the world is glorious and it’s a real quarter of music and hardcore music fans.”

In conversation, Scott is a surprisingly effusive guy, not the tortured artist you may presume. He’s quick to laugh and is genuinely grateful for the chance to make and play music. This grounded, thoughtful and warm musician promises a bewitching gig, full of heart and soul.