There’s a problem when you build your musical sound around an antique pedal harmonium – trying to tour with it.

“We didn’t really think of ourselves as a band at the time we started,” says Emily Scott, the singer in Modern Studies, who faced that difficulty.

“We didn’t have any intentions of playing live, it was more just a project, so making the songs playable live was a challenge. We worked out that everyone was using all their hands and feet at the one time because there were so many things to fit in. There were so many pedals in play to get everything in there!”

They might not have intended to be a touring act, but the Glasgow by way Yorkshire quartet’s performance at the Glad Café tonight as part of Celtic Connections will cap a surprising, successful year for the group.

They make music with traces of indie-pop and folk-rock, and last year’s debut release Swell To Great was filled with wistful, sometimes experimental songs, all powered along by an antique droning harmonium. It was that instrument that kick-started the band, as Emily decided to start writing some songs on it, which she had in her flat.

She approached her old friend Rob St John, who she knew from open mic nights in the past, and from there drummer Joe Smillie and cellist and pianist Pete Harvey joined up to bring the tunes to life.

The result was an album showered in praise when it was released last year, including a slot on Mojo magazine’s Top 20 albums of the year.

“People really just picked up on it and it’s exceeded everyone’s expectations,” says Emily, who stays in the South Side, and originally comes from Ireland.

“It’s been a bit of a whirlwind but getting to tour it is brilliant.”

As someone who is used to playing her own gigs, becoming part of a group took a little bit of time for Emily to adjust to.

“It’s been really natural because we all play to each other’s strengths, even with things like the band admin, designing things and everything that goes into what we produce,” she says.

“It’s a very nice team to bounce ideas off. I’ve had to learn to let go of the control a bit though, because I’ve done everything by myself in the past, right up to the manufacturing of the release. But it’s been amazing doing all of this together, because having the manpower of four makes a massive difference to getting things done.”

Having reeled off one album quickly, and found time to tour with the likes of King Creosote for good measure, the band are already working away on their next record. It won’t be long in arriving, either, with all the songs written.

They’ve got a cover for a Mojo covermount CD on the way too, covering the Kinks.

“It was nice to have a fresh bit of material to work something creative on,” says Emily, who’s keeping mum about what track from Ray Davies and company they’ve tackled.

“It definitely sounds like us but also the direction that we’re going in for the next album. Having a slight familiarity with the source made things much more fun, because you want a bit of contrast when you’re doing a cover. We didn’t want to end up with a pastiche on there.”

Although the band are off to a great start in their career, their name means they’re a nightmare to find information on. That’s somewhat deliberate…

“The journalist Euan McColm had been Tweeting about unsearchable band names, and modern studies was in the news at the time, so it just really grabbed me as a band name,” laughs Emily.

“Even though it is really hard to Google, to me it sounds like a 70s vision of the future, something that sounds dated within itself, and I liked that.”

Modern Studies, Glad Café, tonight, £12.50, 7.30pm