It’s gone from a cowshed to a cultural institution. As its 3,000-album archive gets digitised, different generations explain how Sain deepened Welsh identity

One of the oldest indie labels in Britain sits down a muddy lane on an old RAF site, less than a mile from the sea, half an hour from the mountains of Eryri. Founded in 1969, Sain – meaning sound in Welsh, pronounced (in English) like “sign” – is an unusual label, host to a remarkable treasure trove of music. And now it is on a drive to explore its past, present and future.

It has recently launched a new anthology series, Stafell Sbâr Sain (Sain’s Spare Room), which gets up-and-coming Welsh musicians to record in its vintage analogue studio. Tyrchu Sain (Digging Sain) is a new album by Don Leisure (AKA producer Aly Jamal) which remixes the label’s 56-year-old catalogue into mesmerising new shapes. Meanwhile the label’s archive of Welsh-language music – more than 3,000 albums of pop, psych, prog, punk, funk, folk, opera, choral music and other genres on vinyl and cassette – is being digitised, so it can be released on streaming services for the first time and archived in the National Library of Wales.