HE might have started his record label almost by accident but seven years on Deeside-based Andy Black is still on track to reach a personal target inspired by his grandfather.

Andy, 42, co-runs The Popty Ping Recording Company from an office in Connah's Quay where he gives the best new Welsh bands the chance to release their music on seven inch single.

With their name inspired by the Welsh word for microwave, Popty Ping have so far released six one-off records with the latest by Cardiff-based band CHROMA coming out last week on purple vinyl and limited to just 500 copies.

"Unsurprisingly The Popty-Ping Recording Company was a drunken, daft idea," laughs Andy, who combines his labour of love with his work as an environmental scientist.

"I moved from Leicester to North Wales with my job. In Leicester I’d worked voluntarily for a festival, starting and running their fringe festival. That came to an end in 2010, and up north someone took me to see a Llangollen band called Shy and the Fight.

"They were so good they deserved to have their music released on vinyl. So I reckoned that with no real knowledge or experience I was just the man to do it. That was released in January 2012 and we’re now on our sixth release. Fortunately it’s not been a disaster….well not yet…"

Along with friends Dan Orton, who designs the label's unique artwork and is from Harlech and Matt Jarrett who runs Diverse Vinyl, a record shop in Newport, the trio have masterminded a unique series of releases from newly discovered acts including Mowbird, Gintis and Trecco Beis.

"We put the Shy and the Fight single out and somehow managed to get it on the radio, and TV and even the PA during the Olympics," says Andy.

"We look out for new bands just by keeping our ears to the ground and these days we know some great promoters, go to the best unsigned act events such as Focus Wales and comb the internet."

In the last few years the UK's music scene has undergone something of a vinyl revival with 4.1 million LPs purchased in 2017 – a rise of 26.8 per cent over the 12-month period and up by a notable 1,892 per cent since their low point of just 205,000 copies sold in 2007. Vinyl LP sales are now at their highest level since the start of the nineties, with close to 40,000 albums released on vinyl in 2017. Almost one in 10 of all physical purchases are now on vinyl format.

"I’ve always loved seven inch singles," says Andy. "They were the only way to buy music when I was a child and I think with the modern pressing plants, the variety of colours is becoming artwork. Finally, vinyl honestly sounds better. I’ve seen music recorded from studio to CD to vinyl, and it will always sound richer on vinyl.

"The vinyl revival is a good thing for sure. I think there is something brilliantly comforting about people having racks of vinyl in a house just like bookcases with books. Having said that, queues for pressing plants are getting longer and longer as the big record labels pay to repress older releases for a new market."

Andy admits he is certainly not in the business for fame and fortune.

"Running a record label has proved to be a sure fire way to make some of the best friends, lose money and have a great deal of fun in the process," he laughs.

"We just release one off singles, each time from a different band, each time only on seven inch, each time only in a hand numbered limited edition.

"These days it’s a challenge to sell 100 records. Thankfully some keen lovers of vinyl keep us going, but we don’t make a profit and the proceeds from each single release is ploughed straight into the next one."

Andy insists that Popty Ping will close following the label's ninth and final release so why is nine such an important number?

"I figured we needed a target to aim for and there's no point announcing a project without some form of plan," he adds, before admitting the real reason.

"In the late 1950s, my grandfather wrote a very successful O-level English school book on Poetry called Nine Modern Poets, by E.L. Black. It became an education staple text book and was a review of all the emerging poets of the time including Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes.

"A few years ago Jarvis Cocker admitted he’d stolen a copy from his old school and the story of his eventual return of his late library book made the newspapers.

"The book is well known in my family, so I set a target to issue nine singles and then re-issue a compilation of them all and call it 'Nine Modern Poets, as though in some ways I’ve repeated his work for a more modern generation.

"If we ever do make it, then the compilation will be sold to raise funds for a charity insupport of friends and relative who have died.

"We might not quite find the next Philip Larkin, but it’s a dream to aim for..."

CHROMA: Girls Talk / Nos Da Susanna was released on November 9. For more information go to popty-ping-records.bandcamp.com