Having worked together on various projects over the last decade or so, Jon Hopkins and King Creosote (Kenny Anderson) released their first fully collaborative album, the Mercury-nominated Diamond Mine, in March 2011. One of the things that comes through most clearly when talking to them is the great mutual respect which binds their relationship as collaborating musicians and as friends.

Hopkins tells me they first began to work together predominantly because he was a fan of Anderson’s music. When I ask about the tensions of collaboration between two artists used to working with very different genres, I am unequivocally told that, in this case, there are none. There is a strong division of labour in their work: Hopkins reworks and arranges King Creosote songs as he wishes, taking as his starting point an aim to create a backdrop that best brings out Anderson’s vocals. In return, Anderson gets a new perspective on the songs he has written, which are arranged in a way he could never do himself, something he finds “fresh and inspiring.”

The Domino Records website refers to Diamond Mine as a “genuine labour of love”; this admittedly clichéd statement is justified by the pair’s attitude towards each other’s work. As I probe further into the process of creating this record, this is only strengthened; they way they worked on the record seems almost casual, and their humility seems like the mark of musicians who have made exactly the music that they wanted to make. “When we started recording songs there was no end result, no goal; we just wanted to record songs together,” Anderson tells me. “It wasn’t until we had 15 minutes worth that we thought, ‘another 6 minutes and we’ve got an album.’”

This goes hand in hand with a kind of confidence, of having stuck to their theoretically uncommercial convictions, and a disdain for the more mainstream music industry. Anderson expresses some dissatisfaction that anything with some accordion and seagull sounds will be received as a “coastal record,” and the tendency for his music to be lumped into a folk category that is somewhat beside the point.

Any push I make for big themes around which to spin the discussion (such as the relation of this album to its home in the East Neuk of Fife) hits against the same rebuttal. This album was not made out of conscious decisions to evoke this sound or that set of ideas, but crafted in a place they both love, out of the simple impulse to make music that sounds just right. “The whole thing was about making the least pretentious record we could make.”

Yet this album has, by comparison with the pair’s solo work, sold well, a fact they gracefully acknowledge. “The reason this album works really well is that we made it away from all of the constraints of making an album,” says Anderson. I wonder if there will be more constraints on any future collaboration, as a result of their increased recognition; however, I’m assured that if outside forces start imposing, “we’ll just remind them of what made Diamond Mine a success.”

Amongst all this is an admission, without arrogance, that Hopkins and Anderson know they have created something special here. As they point out, copies didn’t fly of the racks, but there has been consistent and increasing interest in this record, in keeping with the kind of music they believe they have created: it’s slow and melancholy, with an unassuming grace that sinks in more with each attentive listen. “To get everything out of Diamond Mine,” Anderson states, “you should really sit down in a quiet room and just listen to it all.” And with their current tour all but sold out, more evidence than just theirs or mine suggests that kind of effort pays off.

They tell me that there’s a new collection of songs in the pipeline; they’ve written a number of new songs which, in typical unhurried fashion, they might, or might not, start recording at the end of 2012.