Customer Reviews

First Edition

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

(3 & 1/2 stars)

I've been listening to this Fruit Tree Foundation album throughout the morning, enjoying some of it while finding other tracks to be pretty unappealing. According to the Foundation's web site, they're "a new independent project in Scotland led by Rod Jones of Idlewild (ex., Post Electric Blues) and Emma Pollock," originally of The Delgados (ex., Great Eastern). The two were joined by members of Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, and other Scottish musicians. The project was put together in support of a charity, The Mental Health Foundation of Scotland.

The material runs a fairly wide gamut of styles, from somewhat traditional UK folk sounds to pounding rock. I really like a few of the songs, especially "Fall Arch," a beautifully haunting, folkish duet between James Graham and Karine Polwart. "After Hours" is also quite good. Unfortunately, for every good song, there seems to be a relatively stinky one, such as the English folk flavored "Beware Beware." It features not only a quavering vocal (sounding perhaps a bit inebriated?), but also a very shaky improvised solo-guitar part near the end that could have been played by someone just learning to play.

If you like traditional British folk-rock such as FairCon and Steeleye Span, you might find enough about this album to make it worth a listen. (Check out "the Untrue Womb," which is very reminiscent of those kinds of groups.) For me, the album will only be played again with about 8 or 9 of the 14 songs selected.

The review below from [...] says it eloquently. The song themes are around mental health issues and proceeds benefit The Mental Health Foundation in Glasgow Scotland:

Fruit Tree Foundation
First Edition
Another Scottish indie-rock supergroup featuring Emma Pollock = another bonafide winner!
8/10

Label: Chemikal Underground Records
More often than not collaborative 'charity' albums are hit and miss affairs which are well-meaning affairs with a few decent tracks but are generally the kind of records you'll sit through once then assign for eternity to the dusty nether-regions of your CD rack. If that's the case then 'Fruit Tree Foundation' are undoubtedly the exception which proves the rule. A collective built from founder members of The Delgados (Emma Pollock), Frightened Rabbit (Scoot Hutchinson), Sparrow and the Workshop ('Jill O'Sullivan) and Idlewild (Rod Jones) amongst others, the FTF is an independent Scottish project created in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation and given the names involved it as (as one might expect) unashamedly indie.

The real marker that's sets this project apart though is the sheer quality of the songs here, all supposedly written and recorded in the space of just a few days. 'First Edition' represents 14 indie-pop gems which mine the usual suspects (Pixies on 'All Gone But One', Pavement on 'Hired Help' etc. etc.) but renders everything through an intimate folksy vibe with a tangible lo-fi production ethic which helps the album feel like a cohesive product other than juts a collection of songs. The songs featuring Pollock (the groups leading lady for all intents and purposes) are easily the most immediately striking if only because her gorgeous, understated vocals ('Forgotten Anniversary' is the best song Teenage Fanclub never wrote and the gently gothic 'Singing For Strangers' written with Frightened Rabbits Hutchinson is amongst the years very best songs) but truth be told there's no real misses here.

Lyrically the album traces the trials, tribulations and realities of people living with mental illness and being a subject quite close to my heart it struck a real chord with me. The attached press release makes alot of self aggrandising statements about 'finding solace in music' but for once here they genuinely ring true as from the first note to the last there is a genuine warmth and understanding at work here. The charming, homespun nature of the recordings is underlined perfectly on the sparse acoustic hymn 'Beware Beware', the first 15 seconds of which consists of a conversation between it's writers James Yorkston and Alasdair Roberts about which train to take into central Glasgow. There are other obvious markers that the record was recorded in the space of a few days (the rough and ready 'live' sound of 'All Gone But One' for example) but they are few and far between and more often than not add weight to the records general good natured vibe.

As a project The Fruit Tree Foundation is an admirable concept which I hope catches on especially considering the worthy cause. As an album it's a triumph of artistry and soul over commerce and expectation which should delight fans of not only Scottish indie-rock or music fans with first hand experience of mental illness, but anyone with a pulse. Anything else is just a bonus surely?

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Review Source:

[...]

Great collection of talent on this album, but this collaboration turns more hodgepodge than a cohesive album. A few great tracks worth noting, but the album as a whole struggles to raise recognition more than background music.

As a technical critique, Amazon has not labeled these MP3 tracks as all the same artist, so it doesn't play very will with the cloud drive player, or when downloaded and placed into your favorite MP3 playing program or device when sorting by artist.