FENCE-stival

Kenny Anderson expects to be feeling a bit light-headed by the end of the day SkinnyFest catches up with him. Although the sun is blazing down outside, his prediction does not stem from plans for an imminent session in an East Neuk beer garden – his gig-packed schedule is far too busy for such proclivities at the moment – but because he has agreed to spend his time gluing together bespoke tickets for the Fence Collective's forthcoming four night stand at Pitenweem Arts Festival. "We're all doing our bit in organisational terms for the Festival, and it just happens that this is one of the jobs I have been landed with," says Kenny, better known, of course, to aficionados of vaguely lovelorn folk-tinged gorgeousness, by his nom de guerre King Creosote.

That KC, founder and de facto figurehead of the Fence Collective - the famously loose-limbed musical cottage industry which has supplanted Anstruther's award-winning fish and chip shop and Edith Bowman as the sleepy Fife fishing village's most significant contribution to the world - is to be found Pritsticking his way through the day with all the gusto of a teenage fanzine editor may come as something of a surprise to some. This, after all, is a man whose last album 'KC Rules OK', recorded with the assistance of Mancunian folk-psych minstrels the Earlies, has taken on the mantle of a slow-burn classic and has propelled its maker to into the Premierleague of Scottish music-makers. However, old habits die hard for the punkish workhorse who put out over two dozen albums (count em) on limited release before stepping things up a gear in 2003 with his first properly distributed national release, 'Kenny and Beth's Musakal Boatrides'. "The whole DIY ethic thing is what I have always loved so much about Fence," he says, "we realised at an early stage that by working together on our own terms without the hassle of chasing record companies around that we could produce stuff that was worthwhile. The camaraderie was there from the start and I think that that is why there is still an air of excitement about the operation. There are no airs and graces and it has given us all a platform to showcase our stuff with no pressure from any outside parties."

By his own admission, Kenny has taken a step back from the minutia of Fence operations, "I have found myself away quite a lot over the past year," he says. The main reason for his absentia can be traced to the sleeper success of the afore-mentioned 'KC Rules OK', an album so good the record company - Warner-owned imprint 679 Recordings - released it twice within a year, the later version, released in June featuring recut versions of stand-out tracks 678, Marguerita Red, and So Forlorn.

Although firmly focussed on writing and recording new material, "a lot of the songs on KC were written a long time ago so the next one will be more in the moment," it is obvious that Kenny is still proud of (not to mention a little bit taken aback by) the success of his breakthrough record. "It's why I'm doing interviews like these," he jokes. "I was always happy that the material for the record was strong but I didn't realise that those songs could be as epic as they turned out to be. A lot of the credit for that has to go to the Earlies who really opened the album up to new possibilities."