Here’s something that almost never happens anymore: a brand-new Boston band develop a unique sound, write some wonderful songs, bypass the clubs altogether, make a remarkably polished debut album, get signed on the basis of an unsolicited demo, and release it on an international label — all with hardly anybody’s noticing. For those of a certain bent — those who can’t get enough warm, lush, slightly eccentric pop — Ashby’s Power Ballads (Marina) may be the local discovery of the year. But if the band have a fan base, they didn’t get it through airplay or live shows: they’ve enjoyed little of the former and none of the latter.

"That’s our story: we’re the left-wing outsiders," says singer Evelyn Pope when we talk at the Middle East. That phrase had been thrown at the band by a German interviewer a week earlier, when they were abroad for interviews and aired some of their political views. "We’d tell you who we are, but it’s a secret," adds her musical partner, Bill Cowie. The couple, both in their early 30s, made most of the album in their Brookline basement studio. She’s a lifelong Bostonian; he’s from Scotland. She’s the singer, he’s the drummer; everything else — basses, vibes, assorted keyboards, and the odd guitar — is split down the middle. She tends to do most of the songwriting; he’s the studio technician. "It’s a classic male/female thing," Cowie offers. "She’s the artist and I’m the geek."

One of the striking things about Power Ballads is how much it feels like a Boston album, even though it’s the antithesis of the traditional local sound: no lead guitars, no garage or metal leanings, no Velvet Underground or Modern Lovers roots. Ashby’s instrumental textures owe a lot to Stereolab but are used to different effect — to heighten the melodies instead of subvert them. Pope and Cowie like the whirs and whooshes of old analog synthesizers, but there are also live drums and piano on every track. There’s a touch of indie-pop sweetness in Pope’s vocals — that shared-secret tone you hear from the Cardigans or the Elephant Six crew — but she’s not afraid to sound like a grown-up. And though the disc’s tone is friendly and optimistic, there’s just enough underlying melancholy to give depth to her sentiments.

Credit that to Pope’s lyrics, which often concern people in transit. Many of the songs on Power Ballads are about hitting the city for the first time or trying to escape from it. And they’re partly about finding the peak moments in between. "Old Gold" is about the hazy, inspiring feel of catching the dawn when you’ve been up all night. The song moves at a suitably languid pace as Pope sings in a breathy tone about streetlights bouncing off fire escapes. Anyone who’s seen the sun rise over Allston or Central Square can relate.

"That’s a good, druggish kind of feel," notes Cowie. Pope adds, "It’s exactly what I was after — that feeling of a long night, whether you’re working, partying, or coming down, and seeing it come over the city." And the disc’s urban-transit theme? "It’s funny, because I was bred and born in Boston; I always felt I’d move away, but I’m still here. But my sister is constantly on the move, and that fascinates me and makes me slightly jealous." Adds Cowie, "I get an ambivalence in her songs, and that’s more attractive to me than saying, ‘I’m walking on sunshine.’ Concludes Pope, "People in the city like to complain a lot, which I understand. But it’s one of my pet peeves — come on, you live in a great place and you should be happier."

Both of Ashby’s members played in live bands just long enough to realize that they weren’t much into it. Cowie gigged with a couple of club-level outfits in Scotland; Pope played keyboards in the local ska band Mr. Cranky. More important, she played in the New Prime Numbers, whose leader, Pete Ducharme, proved it was possible to make it without playing live. (After years of slogging it out in local clubs, Ducharme struck big when he did instrumental music for a Volkswagen TV ad.) They made a brief attempt to form Ashby as a live band, putting musician ads in the Phoenix, but they grimace when asked what kind of players showed up. "We got people who’d been around a bit and we hadn’t," recalls Cowie. "So we’d try to crack the whip, and they’d give us this look like, ‘Who are you to tell us what to play?’ "

Hence their redirection as a truly DIY band. Along with doing most of their own recording at home, that included handling their own business, sending around a demo that wasn’t far from the finished album, and getting themselves signed. "We had no bio, no photograph, no nothing," says Pope. "If our demo appealed to people, I’d say it was because it was a labor of love. And it took forever." They also did enough Internet research to know who might be receptive. One of their first targets was the public-radio show Morning Becomes Eclectic (on Los Angeles’s KCRW), which has traditionally been indie-friendly. Morning went for it, getting Ashby their first major airplay. Before sending the demo to labels, they figured which ones would at least open the envelope. "You have to be realistic," says Cowie. "We looked around at Web sites — for instance, Sub Pop’s site says, ‘Don’t even bother sending us your demo,’ so we knew not to go there."

It doesn’t take long for the pair’s love of pure pop to reveal itself in conversation. The title Power Ballads, they point out, was taken from an obscure claim made by Richard Carpenter that he invented the power ballad by overdubbing a loud guitar solo onto a Carpenters single (that would be "Goodbye to Love," which one could easily imagine Ashby’s covering). And when the subject of Scottish bands comes up, Cowie goes so far as to defend the Bay City Rollers’ harmonies. Their mission is to put those reference points into a modern electronic setting, combining something timely with something timeless.

"We don’t even think of ourselves as an electronic band," Cowie says. "Our instruments are old and creaky, but we have a top-of-the-line computer. So there’s a tension between the two; perfection and imperfection. Because we were doing everything digitally, we made an effort to put in as many warm sounds as possible. The computer allows us a lot of freedom — it’s basically there to replace the tape machine for us. When we can afford a good tape machine, we’ll probably get one. I like Stereolab and the other bands we’ve been compared to, but the label that signed us doesn’t even like that kind of music — they feel it’s too indulgent. They were looking for the discipline of a good pop sensibility, which was something we had anyway. There are so many guitar bands around, so we saw the electronics as a way of setting ourselves apart. People will basically listen to your song for 15 seconds at first, so if you have a good song, maybe it’s worth the trouble to ensure that it will appeal to someone right off the bat.

"I probably listen to more old music than new music. Sure, we enjoy the weirder electronic stuff, but the egalitarian nature of pop music is very appealing. People like Bacharach and the Beach Boys are going to keep going in and out of fashion for years to come — people who appreciate good songwriting will always keep going back to them." And if they still venture into Stereolab territory, Pope points out that "it probably comes from writing on a piano. The chords those kind of bands use are so accessible on a keyboard, but you probably don’t want to go to a D-major 7th if you’re writing on guitar. Personally I love electric-guitar playing. But let me tell you, when we tried to play it . . ." A self-effacing laugh.

Pope and Cowie do expect to play some kind of live show sooner or later. In the meantime, they’re enjoying their secretive outsider status. "Boston has lots of bands playing out, and it became apparent to us how competitive it is," Cowie explains. "So we thought we’d try going down a different road. I suspect there’s almost a prejudice against bands who aren’t up there rocking away, and that’s fine — we’re not coming in to lay waste to the rock scene. Besides, I wouldn’t want Boston to be full of bands who sound like us."