When the third edition of the Retreat!

Festival was awarded a Bank of Scotland Herald Angel award last year, it was vindication for a network of independent music promoters who had grown out of what we now must call a post-Fence Collective climate. Chief of these was Tracer Trails, a solo operation run by one Emily Roff, who for the last half-decade has effectively changed the live musical landscape in Edinburgh and, with like-minded partners in tow, looks likely to do something similar in Glasgow.

This year alone, Tracer Trails has put on 21 shows featuring a total of 70 artists playing in a variety of carefully chosen venues that have included church halls, working men's clubs and community centres. Tracer Trails also ran two festivals, the fourth Retreat! In Edinburgh, and the new Music Is The Music Language weekend in Glasgow. As if this wasn't enough, Roff initiated the Archive Trails project, in which Alasdair Roberts, Aileen Campbell and Drew Wright, aka Wounded Knee, toured new material developed out of a residency at Edinburgh University's School of Scottish Studies.

This weekend's Tracer Trails enabled James Yorkston's Christmas Jamboree show found Roff getting back to her unplugged roots with a bill that also featured The Pictish Trail and Lisa O'Neill. Tonight's official Christmas party, however, shows just how adventurous Tracer Trails has become since the now 24-year-old Roff watched the Fence community bloom at close quarters while a teenager growing up in Fife.

The final Tracer Trails show of what Roff calls a "super busy year" will be headlined by the ubiquitous Bill Wells' National Jazz Trio of Scotland, with support by Wells' collaboration with Stefan Schneider of German electronicists To Rococo Rot as well as a solo set from Belle and Sebastian guitarist Stevie Jackson.

"I'm really looking forward to it," says Roff. "I'm a massive fan of Bill's music, have been for ages, but this will be the first time he's played one of my shows, and there will be cameos from members of Findo Gask (RIP), Nalle and Teenage Fanclub too."

Founded in a spirit of community inspired by Beat Happening vocalist and founder of the International Pop Underground festival Calvin Johnson, early Tracer Trails bills featured the likes of Alasdair Roberts, Rob St John, Withered Hand and Eagleowl long before most were championed elsewhere.

This year alone, however, has seen Roff work with more left-field fare, including former This Heat drummer Charles Hayward, lo-fi Japanese duo Tenniscoats, avant-primitive all-female septet Muscles of Joy, and – in a double bill with the free saxophone and drum duo of Mick Flower and Bjork drummer Chris Corsano – Niger-based guitar band, Group Inerane.

Roff sees the broadening of Tracer Trails' programme as "natural and inevitable. My tastes have changed a lot since I was 18.

"It's actually taken a while for the Tracer Trails programme to catch up with those changes, but I'm happy with the shows I've been involved with over the past 12 months. I have more time to dedicate to promotion these days, and I'm getting better at it, for sure. I'm learning. I'm pleased that I'm better able to do justice to the artists I work with, because I think they are wonderful and should be heard far and wide."

The last year has seen other changes in the Tracer Trails camp. A shift of operations from Edinburgh to Glasgow, small amounts of public funding and more collaborations with other independent promoters have all contributed to increased activity.

"When I moved to Glasgow I was adamant that I wouldn't be putting on any more gigs," Roff says. "I didn't think Glasgow would have room for Tracer Trails! I moved here for domestic reasons, but then I met a lot of people putting things on I would have loved to do in Edinburgh, and suddenly there was a huge temptation to collaborate and participate again."

As for the future, the Tracer Trails' small is beautiful aesthetic looks set to continue. "I think things will change quite a bit in 2012," Roff muses. "I like to switch it up. There could be fewer gigs, but several structured projects and special events. A couple of festivals, perhaps. I'm also hoping to work more closely next year with one of my favourite spaces in Glasgow. I've always enjoyed using lots of different venues for my shows, but these days somehow I'm itching to programme according to the needs and limitations of a building. Space," she says, quoting Sun Ra, "is the place!"

Tracer Trails Christmas Party featuring The National Jazz Trio of Scotland, Pianotapes and Stevie Jackson, tonight, Old St Paul's Church, Edinburgh.

www.tracertrails.co.uk