HUSBAND and wife team Sascha and Tessa Hartmann have combined their entrepreneurial skills to launch a new record label, Glasgow Records Limited.

The couple have just returned from Cannes, where they attended MIDEM 2000, the largest music exhibition in the world, where they were part of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) stand.

The new Scottish label has three tracks on the BPI's "Best Of British 2000" CD sampler and will release their first singles in the Spring, one from their virtual pop artist, T-Babe, who is already proving a hit on their website.

The Kilsyth-based company developed T-Babe over the last year as a cyber character which walks, talks, dances and sings, the voice being supplied by a professional American singer who wishes to remain anonymous because she is already an established singer on the Continent.

"We have developed a whole identity for T-Babe that will appeal to a wide audience. With her first single 'Peter Pumpkineater' we have created a digitally animated video with T-Babe and several dancers that would impress anyone, in or out of cyber society," said Tessa Hartmann, managing director of Glasgow Records.

Hartmann owns her own successful company, TFF Marketing, and her Swiss husband Sascha, a musician, runs his own music publishing company, HE Publishing, since he came to Scotland three years ago to marry Tessa.

"New technology in music

production combined with the Internet makes it possible to launch an independent label to compete against the giants of the industry," explained Sascha.

He says that the cost of producing a record and video now are a fraction of what they were, and through the Internet potential customers have access to the music.

"We are producing two albums, one featuring a male solo artist, Murray, and the other a song and dance group we have put together called Phoru.''

''We will be releasing singles performed by both later in the year," said Sascha.

The couple are delighted that they were able to register their record label after Glasgow.

"This follows such labels as London, Columbia and Stockholm," said Sascha, "and obviously when we are creating our records we are influenced by the environment around us. There is a Glasgow culture in our music."

The couple have already visited London and New York to drum up interest in their artists and label.

Glasgow Records has its own website, but is creating a site exclusively for T-Babe following a flood of Internet calls.

T-Babe.com will be launched next month along with a range of merchandise and MP3 downloads from her repertoire.