The new album from New Young Pony Club will be "darker" and "deeper", according to lead singer Ty Bulmer.

Speaking to The Quietus over a cup of tea in Crouch End about the band's new album The Optimist, released March 1, she said: "The new album is darker, which for us is definitely more exciting. It still sounds like us but it's a departure.

"We've taken various roads from Fantastic Playroom and sort of gone down them basically to see what happens. We had a set of criteria we wanted to fulfil, not to be amazingly different, but to challenge ourselves. So one of the criteria was 'We will write a proper song', ie the criteria for a proper song is something you can busk. We should busk it to see how much money we make and to see if it stands up to the other buskers doing 'Wonderwall'.

Speaking about the differences from their debut Fantastic Playroom, she added: "It'a darker, it's deeper, it's probably less stylised than Fantastic Playroom. We had quite a narrow remit in terms of our little box that we wanted to play in on Fantastic Playroom, while on this one we've kind of gone 'Sod that, we're multi-faceted individuals - we're not just obsessed with 1979-1982, and we're not just obsessed with New York or new wave.'"

"There should be maturity and growth. People have already kind of gone 'Oh there's no 'Ice Cream blah blah blah', but you know, we've done that and don't need to do it again. We've been obsessed with that kind of music for 10 years, it would be avery banal experience to do that again - especially given that we were on the forefront of that wave of music. Now so many other people are doing it it's not necessary for us to keep on re-hashing that. We can go somewhere else."

"I think Fantastic Playroom was brilliant. I think it didn't get half the attention it deserved. It was like a little jewel, it was perfect. But at the same time, I couldn't to that again. It wouldn't be satisfying to me," she added.

Ty also spoke about the departure of former bass player Igor Volk. "It was just an ego thing. There's only room for one massive ego in this band," she laughed. "There's no hard feelings. We were talking about him that other day, saying 'I quite miss Igor. He's so random, it would be good to have that randomness now'. It's just touring is such a gruelling experience, and people who've not been through it have no idea how gruelling it is. It can be like the worst day of your office job when you think everyone hates you and you're going to be sacked over and over again, and then you have to go and please 2,000 people for an hour every night.

"I think that everybody understood why it happened. I think there are certain people who would rather it hadn't, but for us to continue as a live band, something had to give. I'm lazy, I want an easy life and I didn't want to be in a situation where every single thing has to be discussed because somebody can't let anything lie.

"Sometimes you do a seven or eight hour rehearsal and you spend half of it arguing about nonsense because someone has to have their say."

Coming soon on The Quietus: Ty on Things I Have Learned About Greek Mythology