An Introduction from Rodge Glass
There are several ways you can go about making a mental health charity record. The easiest is to pick a clumsy, vaguely-related theme and then strum your way through mid-paced covers of ‘We Are the World’ and ‘Theme From MASH’, half-asleep, thinking that in the end, quality isn’t really the point. And The Fruit Tree Project would have been forgiven for that. People would have bought the album, played it once and then filed it away under ‘good causes done badly’. God knows that’s been done before. But this collection of musicians chose not to patronise fans or condescend to the issues by operating on auto-pilot. I believe their album has real value because the people on it have taken risks, and been smart enough to realise the best thing artists can do for any cause, no matter how worthy, is get down off their soap boxes and MAKE SOMETHING NEW. So they wrote fresh material, together, fast. Some hadn’t even met each other before the process started. Which made it interesting.
It could have been a disaster. After all, there were nine artists involved who all sing, including several solo performers all used to having their way. So egos could have been bruised. Also, there were real logistical problems – with nine conflicting touring and recording schedules, simply getting everyone in the same room together was, as they say, ‘a challenge’. This meant it was even more crucial to have a system to make sure things actually got done – first, a week of rehearsals under tight constraints, then a break, then another week, in isolation, out in the country, with two studios on the go at once. Each day, people were sent off in pairs and ordered to pull their early versions of songs into shape. There was little time to anguish over details or fight about arrangements. They just had to get on with it. Again, it could have been a disaster. Perhaps it should have been. But it wasn’t.
The members of The Fruit Tree Project aren’t allowed to say this themselves, they have to be modest (and we’re very good at that round these parts). But I’m just a listener, free to say what I like, and I reckon that what they’ve delivered, perhaps because of the restraints, is a powerful, strangely coherent record with a rare energy to it. Despite vocal duties being shared around, and hardly the same line-up for any two tunes, there’s a real sense of the immediate here, and in places it sounds suspiciously like (whisper it) folks were actually having fun. Also, learning something about different ways to write, surprising themselves and each other with what’s possible in the absence of time and money. This might lead to interesting results in the future for the day job. The good news is, it has already. For me, the subtle burr of ‘Splinter’, the lush, uplifting ‘I Forgot to Fall’ or the languid duet of ‘Tooth and Claw’ can stand as equals with the finest work by any of the artists here.
The sign of a good charity record is when listeners forget they’re listening to a charity record. And as I’ve been walking around Glasgow in the last few days, having a sneaky early listen on headphones, singing along like a real nerd, I’ve found that pretty easy. I hope you do too.
Rodge Glass, July 2010.