The Fruit Tree Foundation Grows

9 of Scotland’s finest artists have launched a brand new collaborative record as part of 2010’s Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. Featuring: James Graham (Twilight Sad), Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit), Rod Jones (Idlewild), Jill O’Sullivan (Sparrow and the Workshop), Emma Pollock (The Delgados), Karine Polwart, Jenny Reeve, Alasdair Roberts and James Yorkston The Fruit Tree Foundation is a new independent project in partnership with The Mental Health Foundation, Scottish Wave of Change and Breathing Space Scotland.

The project has grown from the annual Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival (1-24 October 2010) and aims to raise awareness of mental health and well being and challenge perceptions of mental health problems by creating great art.

This ambitious new project sees some of Scotland’s finest and most exciting artists from the indie and folk music scene come together to explore the relationship between creativity and mental health by writing and producing a brand new album; featuring unique pairings and one-off collaborations between some of our most intriguing song-writers.

The album was exclusively available at two special concerts in Edinburgh and Glasgow last year and is now being released internationally by Glasgow’s seminal record label, Chemikal Underground and will be available to buy for the first time since the concerts in October last year.

You can find out more HERE

Download: I Forgot The Fall

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We Were The States

We Were The States had nearly completed the recording of its new album Rasa when the Nashville floods came. With two feet of water in the basement of Coat of Arms studio, the band went from euphoric to discouraged, thinking the record they had worked on for two years would be indefinitely derailed.

Regrouping at Nashville’s Club Roar studio, the Murfreesboro-based five-piece quickly prepped for very long hours on a very limited budget, but ultimately persevered. The resulting album captures all of the energy and precise abandon of the band’s much-loved live show while also reflecting the realistic frustrations of their situation. It’s a tense record, but still a joy to listen to.

Judging by single, "Gold," the band are reaching for the stratosphere and might just make it. Take a bit of the Stereophonics and Americanize it and you have a good idea where We Were The States are coming from. Soaring, far reaching, and catchy as hell, "Gold," is a terrace anthem waiting to happen. Floods be damned, this is a band that's headed for the stars.

Download: Gold

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