QUARFF, on the South Mainland of Shetland, is a remote spot by anyone’s standards. Walk for a few minutes to the east, and you’ll be gazing out across the North Sea. Walk for a few minutes to the west, and you’ll be dipping your toes in the Atlantic. It’s a narrow stretch of the islands, with only one road running north to south. But, if Kris Drever’s Twitter timeline is anything to go by, there’s no problem getting a broadband connection up here.

When he’s not dropping hints about his forthcoming solo album and sharing information about his work with acclaimed trio Lau, you might well find him having a pop at Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt or Oliver Letwin in 140 characters or less. Such is the social conscience of the 21st-century folk singer.

“The morality of what appears to be an increasingly distant political elite never fails to enrage me,” Drever says. “Like everyone else who has small children, my time is limited but I try to make sure I read some news media every day. And almost every day, without fail, there’s something that just flabbergasts me and upsets me. The lack of compassion or practicality, the way that they just react to things and don’t think about anything… I don’t understand what kind of a society produces these strange, lopsided people.”

He takes a deep breath.

“This is just part of who I am. Everyone who knows me on a social level knows that those topics of conversation rear their heads quite quickly.”

This fiery sense of justice might seem at odds with the soft Orcadian lilt and gentle physical presence of Drever himself, but it has regularly risen up in songs throughout the decade since the release of his first solo album, Black Water. There’s Harvest Gypsies on that debut, Freedom Come A’Ye on its follow-up Mark The Hard Earth, and his version of Parcel Of Rogues on the EP he did with Eamonn Coyne and Megan Henderson in 2012. Throwing Pennies looks at homelessness on Lau album Race The Loser while Ghosts is a second-generation migrant’s dignified response to verbal abuse on Lau’s latest, The Bell That Never Rang.

The politics are perhaps a bit more low-key on Drever’s third solo album, If Wishes Were Horses, which is released at the end of this month (although the line “I wish that politicians’ ties would tighten up when they told lies” from the title track can be viewed in a different light after David Cameron’s attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s dress sense). Nevertheless, Drever reckons it’s part of a folk musician’s day job to provide a voice of protest.

“However, I think one of the best ways to do it is through small details,” he explains. “If you decide you’re going to write about the EU Referendum, how long would that song need to be for it to be in any way nuanced? The weight of material and angles doesn’t really lend itself to songwriting – but you could take one small aspect. Most stories that are told in song are told from one person’s point of view, or from one event, because there just isn’t time to cram all the information you need for a balanced argument into a song.”

The most notable thing about the writing on If Wishes Were Horses, however, is not the politics but the personal. Dark Water and Mark The Hard Earth were consciously more "traditional" folk albums that lifted songs from an older heritage or borrowed them from other contemporary writers. As you might expect from someone born into the scene as the son of Wolfstone’s Ivan Drever, these albums – both produced by fiddler John McCusker – feature an array of well-kent Celtic Connections stalwarts such as Phil Cunningham, Tim O’Brien, Ewen Vernal and Donald Shaw.

If Wishes Were Horses, on the other hand, is entirely self-penned (with the exception of a rather jazzy take on Capernaum, made famous by The Tannahill Weavers, and a couple of tunes co-written with Boo Hewerdine). Not only that, Drever’s lyrics often seem less abstract and much closer to home – literally so, sometimes, as the move to Shetland two and a half years ago and the fact that last summer he became a father for the first time seem to have made him more comfortable when writing on personal themes.

“It makes touring a little bit trickier but home life is good,” he admits. “Until the boy came, I had a little bit more time for practice and writing, but there are good musicians here, good studio facilities for working up ideas, and I’ve got a little set-up at home as well.

“On this record I wanted to make the more personal material relatable on a universal level. There are very few circumstances that are unique to one person; most of the things we do in life other people also do. In a lot of ways, it’s harder – at least to start with – to present things that are personal like that in front of people that you don’t know and have never met. But it’s like breaking a seal: once you’re over that hurdle, it becomes easier and it grants you a lot of extra tools that you can employ in the writing craft. It’s almost as if avoiding using personal experience is denying yourself a large percentage of the potential material available to you.”

Drever reckons he can usually tell when the spirit of a song might be better suited to the band environment of Lau – where he plays guitar and sings alongside accordionist Martin Green and fiddler Aidan O’Rourke – and when it might be better saved for a solo release or one-off collaborative project. He also notes that his growing confidence as a songwriter on If Wishes Were Horses will make for a stronger live solo set.

“The previous solo tours that I did, I maybe didn’t feel 100% comfortable performing for an hour and a half with the material I had,” he admits. “A lot of those [early] things lent themselves to the ensemble arrangements. For this record I completed all the songs and then developed arrangements with the ensemble. I had already worked out ways of performing them solo which made me feel that they were complete.”

The band set-up on the new album features Ian Carr on guitar, Ewan Burton on bass and Admiral Fallow’s Louis Abbott on drums. They’ll join Drever for four Scottish dates at the end of his forthcoming tour but, for the first 16 dates on the road – the bit that takes him through England and Wales and back up to Paisley – he’ll be performing entirely on his own.

“Just me and my guitar,” he nods. “I kind of like to get into a little headspace of my own before I go and perform anyway. It’s easier sometimes to have the freedom and the lack of distractions to just get right into that – the heart of where I’m going to perform the music from. So, aye, three weeks of travelling around on my own will be very therapeutic as I get to play music at the end of every day. I’m going to do it all by train. I’ve got strategic journeys booked so that I’ve got little bits of time here and there. I’ll listen to lots of music and maybe do a bit of writing.”

So, as a working dad, does that mean Drever is early to bed these days, and not out searching near the venue for a post-gig fireside folk session?

“If I’ve got a day off on a tour and I’m near a session, I’ll absolutely go,” he insists. “Social music is very important, and it’s a link to the traditional music I’ve always enjoyed. It’s really valuable as a musician. Young people who are learning musical instruments don’t play enough with other people, and that’s the most important skill of all, I think. If you learn how to keep time with other people, you make better music.”

[italics]If Wishes Were Horses is released by Reveal Records on March 28. Kris Drever’s UK tour begins in Ramsbottom on March 26, and includes Paisley Arts Centre (April 12), Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree (May 12), Glasgow’s St Andrews in the Square (May 13), Edinburgh’s Pleasance Theatre (May 14) and Eden Court in Inverness (May 15). For details see krisdrever.com[enditalics]