RECORD shops shutting down and album sales drying up. Such tales of woe permeate the music business these days, but sometimes a story comes along that restores your faith in fan support and quality music. For me, the arrival of new label Last Night From Glasgow (LNfG) is a shaft of sunlight emerging from behind the clouds.

Things have moved fast since January, when Murray Easton met up with Ian Smith for the first time to discuss the business model for a new label. With four other music-savvy founders on board, this label would be crowdfunded by 100 members paying £50 per year for exclusive vinyl releases and entry to launch parties. Well, it’s not even the end of May, and already one 7-inch single has been released and membership is near capacity.

“Self-releases can be good fun but sometimes artists need the platform of a label so they don’t just disappear in a short space of time,” says Easton, the man behind the Everything Flows music blog and podcasts. “Our idea is initially to print up 300 copies on vinyl for every release so that our 100 members, plus the six of us on the board, will own the record straight away, and be tweeting and posting and talking about it. Other people can just buy the releases as they come out.”

That’s interesting in itself, but LNfG steps up a level when you look at the quality of the music being produced. The first 7-inch featured the melodically gorgeous Ballad Of The Nearly Man by Mark W Georgsson, backed on its AA side by the very same song sung in Icelandic by Sigridur Thorlacius and Arnari Gudjonssyni.

Next up is the first single from Emme Woods (aka Morgan Woods, who previously released as Something Someone), a move away from her earlier acoustic folk sound to a bold electrified PJ Harvey mode. Then comes a real innovation: a digital download/USB credit card release of an album called Pii, made by Stephen Solo (ie Stephen Farrell from the band Sonny Marvello) entirely using phone technology and mobile apps.

Later in the year comes the debut album from all-girl retro-poppers Teen Canteen – and that would be a one-to-watch buzz release from any label on the Scottish indie scene. It’s proof that LNfG are serious contenders from the word go, as is the label’s partnership with photographer Brian Sweeney whose visual work (he took the shot shown here of Emme Woods floating in Loch Lomond for her single cover) gives LNfG a distinctive, classy and artistic identity.

“Having tangible items is important to fans and to artists,” notes Easton. “Certainly I’ve gone from having my vinyl stored up in the loft to bringing it back down. And I’m really enjoying playing a full album again, or turning over a single and playing the B side.”