Only a fraction of people (at best) at the "star-studded" Brits awards during the week would have known of the existence of Belle and Sebastian who, almost unbelievably, carried off the "Best British Newcomer" ahead of fellow nominees Gomez, Cornershop and Propellerheads, not to mention the formidable Billie, Honey, Five, Cleopatra and Steps. The eight-piece Glaswegian band are about as enigmatic as they come - they refuse to be photographed together and rarely, if ever, give interviews - not for them to reveal their favourite colour to the presenters on The Ozone.

Falling somewhere in between The Smiths and The Pastels, with Robert Forster in the background, Belle and Sebastian are treated with such reverence by their fans that already their limited edition of 1,000-copy, vinyl-only debut album, Tigermilk (1996) is changing hands for £700 and is one of the most collectable albums of the last five years. The band formed in a cafe somewhere in Scotland in early 1966 and say they are named after a cult 1960s television show (the fact that no show of that name seems to exist, aside). Their "ideology" (if you can call it that) owes more than a little to that of US band The Residents who, mindful of the cult of personality in the modern world, always refused to name the members of their band and never talked to the media - in fact they got their name when one their demo tapes was returned and addressed as "for the attention of the residents . . . ".

For the record, though, the elusive members of Belle and Sebastian, we can somewhat less than exclusively reveal, are Stuart Murdoch (vocals), Stuart David (bass), Stevie Jackson (guitars), Richard Colbourn (drums), Chris Geddes (keyboards), Isobel Campbell (cello) and Sarah Martin (violin) and A.N. Other. A massive local hit when they first started gigging, they were given their first hand up by The Tindersticks, who booked them as a support act. After BBC Radio 1 DJ Mark Radcliffe (the thinking person's Chris Evans) got right behind their debut album, ensuring it sold out in less than a month, they signed a deal with Jeepster Records. Radiohead (Thom Yorke is a massive fan) entered the fray here and offered the band the support slot on their worldwide tour, but Belle and Sebastian declined the offer.

Strangely enough their second album, If You're Feeling Sinister, was in the shops 10 days after they signed their deal, and that went on to sell 15,000 copies. Since then a series of EPs, most notably 3,6,9 Seconds of Light, which actually went to a dizzying number 32 in the charts, broadened their appeal somewhat. That appeal lay partly in the fact that they were addressing the needs of an audience that has been neglected for well over a decade - and maybe even since Nick Drake. They are a rallying point for the disaffected, and their songs are populated by characters normally found only in the darker Mike Leigh films.

Now that their chief songwriter, Stuart Murdoch, has given up talking to the press entirely (he doesn't want his role as songwriter to cloud the collective efforts of the band - which is fair enough, I s'ppose), their record company, if you hassle them for a couple of years, might throw you the bass player or drummer, who come out with gems like "we don't ask to be interviewed. I don't know if our press officer goes looking for them, but we certainly don't ask him to. We're not out to get that sort of publicity" even before the first question is asked.

Away from all that, though, there is an important point about Belle and Sebastian's approach that many bands could learn from. They built their career not from press coverage or endless radio play but from writing good songs. By owing their progress almost entirely to their own efforts, and by writing songs for the people the record companies usually ignore, they have brought some sanity back into these media-saturated days where bands like Placebo get far more coverage than they merit, simply because somebody deems contrived androgyny to be "interesting" - if Brian Moloko was serious about what he's doing, he'd go home and listen to a Go-Betweens album.

If you want to check out the Belle and Sebastian sound, the easiest recording of theirs to track down is the current album, The Boy With The Arab Strap (which is on Jeepster Recordings) but it's really the first one, Tigermilk, you should be looking for. If you haven't the necessary £700 to get yourself a copy, worry not (and this decision was taken long before The Brits award) it will be re-released on vinyl - and, for the first time, CD - next month. Get your order in now.

Belle and Sebastian: but which two are these? Answers on a postcard please