Indie outfit Turin Brakes tell Tim Hughes what’s going on in their curious world.

A decade and-a-half, and six albums, into his career Gale Paridjanian is a man who is starting to enjoy himself.

One half of mellow songwriting duo Turin Brakes, the Londoner has stopped worrying about success — and, with a new album under his belt, has finally found himself.

“We have survived by digging our heels in and have managed to come through,” he says.

“I think we were spinning around a lot in the old days and didn’t know what was going on. The measure of success and failure, good and bad was with someone else. Now it’s with us — and we have never been happier.”

He is speaking from the back of a car on the way to a show in Gloucestershire (“We’re still going round roundabouts in Swindon,” he sighs).

Tonight that tour arrives in Oxford for a show at the O2 Academy.

“It’s good fun and it’s nice to be busy,” says Gale.

“The whole cycle usually involves doing an album, touring it, then starting to think about doing another. But we’ve been peppering our lives with gigs all over the place — and this album came out of that.”

The long player in question, We Were Here, is a slice of vintage Turin Brakes which will instantly appeal to fans of their Mercury Music Prize-nominated 2001 debut The Optimist.

By turns majestic, hypnotic and heartwarming, it finds Gale, and songwriting partner and childhood friend Olly Knights at their emotional best. Exploring melancholy themes of loneliness, disconnection and alienation, Olly has described it as “a summation” of where the band are now “a little more afraid of the world and its systems, and wrestling with the idea of either fitting in or dropping out and pulling up the escape hatch.”

Recorded in a series of 18-hour day sessions over two weeks at the Rockfield studio in Wales,with long-time collaborators Rob Allum and Eddie Myer, the album reflects Gale and Olly’s love of 1970s West Coast singer-songwriters as well as Mississippi Delta blues. There are even shades of jazz, hip hop, ambient music and Pink Floyd.

“This album is looking at where we are going,” says Gale. “I feel it is a continuation of the first album really. It’s the sound of us working out whether to do an album or not, of us asking ‘what are we trying to say and do?’ From album to album, our style has been changing. If we do something on one record we always want to do something different. But this time we thought about the good things Turin Brakes stand for — and went for that without worrying about having to make a dubstep or electro album!”

“We thought about doing it on laptops for two or three hours a day over a year, like the last one, or over a short amount of time in an analogue studio just for the experience.”

They decided to do the latter, recording to old fashioned reel-to-reel tape, having found a supply which had been stashed at the studio. The attention to detail pays off with a warm acoustic quality.

Since forming in Balham, South London, in 1999, Turin Brakes have built up a loyal following and sold more than a million records. Their second album, 2003’s Ether Song charted at number four and spawned the top five single Pain Killer (Summer Rain). That was followed by top 10 album JackInABox (containing the beautiful Fishing for a Dream), Dark On Fire and Outbursts.

But Gale admits not everything has gone their own way, with success coming sporadically, leaving periods of doubt. “It has not come easy to us,” he says, candidly.

“We’ve been through the mill and have not tried to second guess the music business or our friends. After all, no one is buying music any more.

“But if no one buys another album in the world ever, we’d have still made this record for ourselves. There’s a weird freedom in the idea that no one is looking. We knew we could do what we wanted because no one is listening!”

The addition of Rob and Eddie to the now-foursome have given them a fuller sound and relieve more of the pressure on its two core members.

“It was a very natural transition,” says Gale. “We were doing these shows anyway, and being with them made it much more fun and took a lot of weight off.”

The album saw the band working together in the writing process as never before. And Gale is convinced it is the best record they could have made.

“We’ve gone through a tunnel and come out the other side,” he says. “And this is the light at the end of it. It shows that if you want to do it, this is the way to do it.

“We have worked out a new system that works for us. We have a direct relationship with our fans and are living in the moment we are temporarily in.”

And how does he get on with his old friend Olly — with whom he has been recording since first EP, The Door, 14 years ago? The pair, who are both fathers of two young children, live a 20-minute drive away from each other in South London, and still hang out as friends, but surely they must get suck of each other?

“Weirdly not,” he laughs. “We get on very well, and know when to stay out of each other’s way.

“We can get through musical stuff quite quickly as the communication is good because of all the years of being together.”

And that extends to touring. “We are looking forward to playing Oxford,” he says. “We have always had good shows there.

“We want to thank people for growing older with us — and hope they come out and see us — one more time, at least.”

Turin Brakes

O2 Academy, Oxford

Tonight (Thursday), 7pm

Tickets: £20 from www.ticketweb.co.uk