IT’S certainly no embarrassment for your record not to be named Scottish Album Of The Year when the act who won the award last week were Young Fathers.

Nine other acts cheered on the second-time winners, from very well-established crews such as Franz Ferdinand and Mogwai to newbies Kobi Onyame, BABE and Best Girl Athlete, the outfit headed by musician and singer Katie Buchan.

“I was so shocked,” says Buchan, on the phone from her home in Aberdeen. “The SAY Award shortlist – and the longlist too – usually has more established acts, and I don’t see us as an established band. Were were sitting on the sofa listening to the shortlist be announced on the radio. They got to number nine and we still hadn’t been played and I thought: ‘You know what? We’re lucky to have gotten on the longlist, that’s still really cool.’

“And then In Your Head came on and we just looked at each other and it was so, so surreal. We were just like: ‘What?’ at each other.”

In Your Head, an atmospheric and strutting shanty backed with bouncing brass taken from Buchan’s self-titled album, is just one stand-out track in a collection of stand-out tracks. From the cool electronica of In The Morning, through cinematic, Lana Del Rey-like numbers such as Lucy, to the ghostly, hushed Baby Come Home, it’s a remarkably diverse and accomplished album for the 19-year-old.

The latter features the unexpected rhymes of Jackill aka Aberdeen MC Jack Hughes, who guests on the record alongside Iona Fyfe, Rick Redbeard and Leeds based seven-piece funk extravaganza The Haggis Horns. The lush, heart-stealing string arrangements are the work of Pete Harvey, Perthshire composer-in-demand and member of super-group Modern Studies.

Best Girl Athlete’s work is released on Aberdeen’s Fitlike Records, a collective of musicians and artists which the label’s Bandcamp page says “work under the ethos that if you can do it yourself then do it”. Fitlike’s “heid bummer” is Charley Buchan, an established musician in the north east who performs as CS Buchan.

He’s been Katie’s collaborator for the past five years, and accompanied her on her first US tour, promoting her debut album which was released when she was just 16. He also happens to be Katie’s dad.

“My dad and I have always worked together on songs,” says Buchan. “I write my own songs and he writes his own and we work together on all of them.”

The pair perform in their respective bands, and Katie sings on several tracks throughout the new CS Buchan album. Recently they featured on Notes From A Musical Island, a BBC Radio 4 programme in which they took Guardian music writer Laura Barton around Aberdeen and discussed how they work together as father and daughter, and as musical equals.

“I think we’re really close,” Katie tells The National. “My dad is a young dad. He’s 40 and I’m 19 – my parents were very young when they had me. He’s very much into his music, as am I and we do hang out a lot.”

With the second Best Girl Athlete album, the pair wanted to evolve their sound and incorporate different techniques and artists. The involvement of composer Harvey came after they met at the launch gig for Katie’s first album at St Machar Cathedral in Aberdeen.

“I used to be in the choir at school and we’d do our Christmas services there,” says Buchan. “That’s where I got the idea to launch the album there. Pete came and played with us. He’s since played with us a lot and we’ve played live with him too.”

Buchan will soon begin a degree in law and politics at the University of Edinburgh and envisages putting together a band of musicians based in the capital, if she’s asked to play gigs.

“I’m so excited,” she says. “Going to Edinburgh is an opportunity in itself as there’s a lot more opportunities, music-wise, in Edinburgh and Glasgow. I just take things as they come, though. I’m a go-with-the-flow person.”

Best Girl Athlete is out now: bestgirlathlete.wordpress.com, fitlikerecords.bandcamp.com