Fallingham Fair
Album: Songbook
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 9
Website: http://fallinghamfair.bandcamp.com/

Aiofe McCauley, Fred Claridge and Tim Gilvin, aka Fallingham Fair have been building themselves a bit of a reputation for their strong three part harmonies and how they incorporate that into a folk-pop landscape. As important the way they choose to present it.

"Songbook" is actually a concept album, but they've found themselves a great concept upon which to build, 'the different perceptions and uses of music within popular culture' and if that sounds a little bit like a sixth form dissertation, so what, because the result is a really fascinating nine track album that delivers an eclectic mix of songs.

There really is a lot going for "Songbook", whilst many of the songs take on the more obvious themes, songs to meet to, dance to, make love to, these are mixed in with less instantly obvious, songs to march to and sing to, to keep the flagging spirits up and as important, songs to spend time reflecting to and in "Record Deck" a simple song about the reviving ritual of actually taking time out to enjoy music for music's sake.

One of the great things about Fallingham Fair is their vocal strength and how they deploy that over the different stylings of the songs and with the addition of a third harmony vocal it does give them something distinctive over a lot of folk orientated acts.

"Songbook" is just that, a collection of songs on a theme. The important thing becomes the execution and on that score, this is a concept that finds the mark time and time again.

Neil King