Conceived in frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell’s Glasgow flat, as all Camera Obscura records are, the forthcoming release Desire Lines is the band’s fifth album. It is their first since My Maudlin Career in 2009. The band are an indie-pop institution, having peddled their peculiar brand of melancholy snarkiness for the past seventeen years.

“People often say, ‘Oh, so you’ve had a four-year hiatus,’” Campbell tells me, with her trademark sarcasm, “as though we’ve been on the beach in Thailand or something.”

The reality was, she used that time to get her life back and learn to appreciate her city. “On tour constantly or making a record, I lost all sense of who I was and what I was doing in Glasgow. We have had two years off this time. I would do a yoga class or a painting class or learn to cook. Simple things like that, the things that people who have ordinary nine-to-five jobs in the same city every day are used to.”

A well-deserved break: since forming the band back in 1996, there’s been little time for pause. “We weren’t even a full-time band for most of it, and that’s what people don’t realise: we’ve got other stuff to do. Kenny, for instance, he worked for many years with people with drug and alcohol addiction and Lee has worked for Richmond Fellowship where he supports people with mental health problems.” Pop stars and voluntary service workers, it’s enough to make you feel inadequate.

“Carey joined the band right after she got her degree from university and has been with us ever since,” Campbell continues; comfortable talking about her band mates, bored talking about herself. “Good for her,” I say. “Well, I don’t know,” quips Campbell, “it’s a tricky sort of time and if she was to go out and look for a job tomorrow she might find it quite hard with her English degree and ten years on the road.”

It’s this unapologetic realism that often lends an ironic edge to Campbell’s lovelorn lyrics, paradoxically sentimental and discerning all at the same time. “You with your dietary restrictions, said you loved me with a lot of conviction,” muse the lyrics of the not-so-romantic French Navy. It’s the kind of cynical play on twee that has branded Camera Obscura one-offs in indie pop, and led them to famously garner the support of John Peel and Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch.

Campbell’s sardonic persona softens when the conversation turns to their fans. Whenever someone emails the band, she says, one of the band replies personally. “I don’t see any reason why not; we’re not exactly The Rolling Stones. It’s a nice way to bring us closer to our fans. That sounds corny but we’ve always had a good relationship with them.” It ought to be corny, but from her it isn’t.

Campbell becomes truly animated for the first time all interview when telling me about her approach to experiencing music: “If I want a record I’ll just go and buy it and that’s that. I won’t stream it and I don’t use Spotify. I’m not being a martyr, and it’s not that I don’t know how to do it, I’m just a wee bit more traditional. I like going to the shop on a Monday morning when I know that an album’s coming out and taking it home, and sticking it on, and looking at the artwork.”

“It takes a lot of work and effort to make music and then decide which songs are going to make it onto a record, then to decide the running order, and then to decide how you’re going to make it look good, what artwork you’re going to have, where the credits are going to go, what font you’re going to use. This is all something that someone really thinks about and it does feel annoying that some people couldn’t give a shit about it.” Campbell puts on a mock-idiot voice, “I just want track seven and I’m not even going to pay for it, I’m just going steal it from the Internet ‘cause music should be free.”

Campbell’s riled up, but she reverts to reason, “What can you do? You can’t get angry about it or you wouldn’t want to make the music anymore. Music is still respected by people who want to respect it and I think luckily we’re one of the bands that have a following who will do that. We’re a dying breed.”

Camera Obscura’s fifth album, Desire Lines, is out in the UK on 3rd June.