FOR the uninitiated, those strange lines snaking around the block this morning were in place for Record Store Day, when vinyl enthusiasts prepare a flask and queue early to get their hands on their choice from more than 500 limited edition releases. This year they range from a sunburst vinyl release of ABBA’s Summer Night City to a seven by seven-inch boxset from Zero 7.

The idea is to attract buyers to the country’s independent record shops, with more than 200 taking part. For the true music devotee, however, the much-trumpeted vinyl comeback has been met with something of a shrug. In their hearts, and filed alphabetically in their IKEA shelving, it never went away.

Musicians, however, are delighted when the product of their studio labours is etched on to a 12-inch piece of vinyl, black or otherwise. This is particularly true of those who were born in the CD era. Those who plundered neglected vinyl collections of parents who couldn’t be bothered to source a new stylus, spirited them away to student flats, and boosted their collection by crate-digging at second-hand record shops and consulting the gurus of the grooves.

The lavishly packaged re-issues and remasters are marketed squarely at those who either sold the originals or allowed them to disappear with the kids. Increasingly though, releases from new names are multi-format, with vinyl giving them added credibility.

This is being supported, as ever, by the independents. In the case of a new label called Assai Recordings, this is guided by those who know exactly what the vinyl shopper is looking for. Assai Recordings has spun out of two record stores, the first which opened in the Broughty Ferry suburb of Dundee in August 2015, with the second in Edinburgh in April 2017.

Assai head Keith Ingram has an impressive pedigree in music retail, from early days at HMV to Heard That Sound in Stirling, which became HTS Scotland, an online music retail company. The Assai brand began with retro record players before the stores and the move into recordings. Even then, the first two albums, From Zero To One by Hamish Hawk and the New Outfit, released last month, and What is Home? by Brownbear, released yesterday, aren’t the first releases from Assai.

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“We released an EP by a Dundee band called Carousel in April 2017 and before that there was a CD in about 2009 by Phil Campbell, who’s doing OK with the Temperance Movement now,” says Keith Ingram.

Fans of new Scottish music will agree that Assai has secured releases from two of Scotland’s best young songwriters, but with no A&R man on staff, it’s Keith’s enthusiasm for music that has made it happen.

“Even though Hamish’s album was out first, it was Brownbear that we initially made a deal with. I saw him solo, supporting Kyle Falconer I think, and was struck by how instant the songs were.”

Led by Matt Hickman from Largs, Brownbear is a musical collective with Sam Waller on drums and Andrew McAllister on lead guitar.

As Matt says, the first album has been a while coming, but that old-fashioned paying of dues has led to a groundswell of support, not only from the industry in Scotland but those who attend the gigs.

Apart from spending some time on the commercial music course at the University of the West of Scotland, Matt has learned the industry inside out from promotion to crewing to working as a backline tech for other bands.

“The album has been done for a while,” says Matt, “and, as most people do nowadays, I was going to put it out myself, but I met a Dundee singer-songwriter called Billy Mitchell who was working with Kyle Falconer, and he put me on to Keith at Assai.

“What struck me is his genuine enthusiasm for music. Keith is also willing to put his money where that enthusiasm is. He basically said, ‘I love this music let’s make it work’ and he did.”

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Brownbear has had something of a settling-in period over the past few years, where Matt realised that he wanted to go about things in a different way. “We’ve seen bands come and go and I think some of that has been down to bad advice. Big agents have wanted us to do things that we really didn’t want to do, like sticking to playing the cities – we wanted to get out into the towns. Smaller venues are much more rewarding. A lot of people had seen us at places like the Barrowlands supporting The Libertines, but getting smaller shows mean I can get to know what people like by talking to them.

“The thing is, everybody knows the music industry is bit messed up, but Keith and certain people in radio are fighting for new music to thrive.”

According to Ingram, there was no question about releasing the album. It was fully mastered and simply needed the financial backing to produce the physical product. “People already know Brownbear. With Carousel we had a brand-new band, but Matt has built up such a following by gigging hard and getting good support slots.”

Now that the album is on its way to the shelves, Matt can turn his attention to the follow-up. “The first album has taken a lot longer than we wanted and I’ve already finished writing a second. Hopefully that will come much quicker.”

Taking songs to the people rather than waiting for them to travel to the main cities has also worked for Edinburgh’s Hamish Hawk. His album, From Zero To One was released on Assai Recordings on March 23, at the tail end of a tour with King Creosote, that took them from Kirkwall in the north to Galashiels in the south.

Hamish admits that Kenny Anderson (King Creosote) has been something of a mentor, since he plucked up the courage to give him a CD of songs about five years ago.

“I was involved in a music society at St Andrews University, and knowing the Fence Collective was just along the coast we invited Kenny to play. He took the CD, but I didn’t expect anything. He emailed me about 40 minutes after he had left, He had already listened to it and said he wanted to help me.”

Being welcomed into the bosom of Fence was a helpful place to be, but early last year Hamish made the frightening leap from a full-time job. With a plan to visit friends in the US, his friend Dan Willson (Withered Hand) put him in touch with a manager who turned that tour in a 26-state 10,000-mile tour.

“When I came back, I knew I had to make a go of it, but I was skint so needed to get at least a part-time job. Then an ad for the Assai record shop in Edinburgh came up and I got a job there.”

An album was recorded on Mull, at An Tobar in Tobermory, and there was what Hamish calls a gentleman’s agreement with a small label to put it out. As the months went by, however, nothing was happening.

“We had always supported Hamish’s releases in the shop,” says Keith Ingram. “Not because he works here but because he’s a great writer and we always promote new Scottish music. It did seem strange that nothing was happening with the album after such a long time.”

It became evident that the label wasn’t going to put the album out. “The agreement fell apart,” adds Hamish. “I was totally despondent – I thought I’d have to put it out myself on a cheap CDR, but Keith came into the shop one day and said, ‘I’m thinking of releasing your record’. That was just the end of last year. He made it happen so quickly.”

After seeing so much of the US, Hamish has seen almost every small town and many villages in Scotland as support to King Creosote and others. Working from Edinburgh suits him, even though many feel that Glasgow is the city where careers take off.

“It’s a great city but I don’t have a Glasgow state of mind – I’m at home here. There will never be any scenes outside of Glasgow if everyone packs up and goes there.”

For Assai, the opportunity to release such different but in many ways complementary albums is a statement of intent.

“Hamish comes from a completely different angle from Matt and Brownbear. They are such different artists but we’re lucky to get two such high quality releases from two of Scotland’s best unsigned artists.

“Everybody at Assai is in this business because they love music. For me, it’s great to put something together like this, something that can’t be bought in a supermarket record section. We know that we won’t get commercial radio coverage for this and it’s not a money-making exercise, but we can’t be a record shop without records and the Scottish section is always front and centre for us. We’re happy to take a more proactive role in that.”

Hamish Hawk and the new outfit From Zero To One is on limited vinyl and on CD.

He will perform at Assai in Edinburgh today for Record Store Day.

www.hamishhawk.com

Brownbear What is Home? was released yesterday. There are two in-store launches today in Assai Broughty Ferry at 2pm and Edinburgh at 6pm.

www.facebook.com/brownbearofficial

Order both at www.assai.co.uk.