The Fruit Tree Foundation – First Edition

It’s tempting to be abnormally lenient towards a record borne of a good cause, with lyrical ideas that deal with difficult, easily overwrought themes of introspection, defiance, love, conflict and sexuality, completed in a combined total of mere weeks. Thankfully, the team working as the Fruit Tree Foundation has bailed us out by delivering a musically diverse and entertaining record. Essentially a folk/indie collective, the extremely restricted timeframe seems to have aided the creative process.

Production is necessarily unfussy but clever, lending imagination to potentially straightforward tracks. Well-crafted lyrics grounded in reality deal with the aforementioned themes deftly and imaginatively. Music that shifts from straight up folk (although the traditional lament is given a 21st century reboot with a sordid twist on Beware Beware) to indie power pop is consistently engaging throughout, benefiting from, rather than being hindered by, the medley of personalities involved. All concerned should take a bow, for all sorts of reasons. [Paul Mitchell]