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Tree Trunks – Hot Fruit – 06/03/26

“We’ll sugarcoat the bread
We’ll say our prayers twice”

What is in a first impression? Tree Trunks’ latest LP, Hot Fruit, is immediate with its saccharine peppiness; ‘Tiempo’, the opening track, shimmies with three notes of repeated woodwind and a woodblock Soca rhythm. The melody is fairly simple, and Sam Lewis’ stream-of-consciousness lyricism is sung with a whimsical airiness. You might start worrying that the work is untethered, like loose jam in a whirlpool.

That is not the case, however. The work is grounded in an interesting process: tracks would be born from an already existing title – Hot Chip’s ‘Over & Over’ and XTC’s ‘Skylarking’, for example – with Lewis working on reimagining the song’s themes, sometimes completely ignoring the actual song altogether, while Robert Hunter pieced together a new instrumentation. The influence of other artists is apparent throughout the album: just listen to ‘Hold Me’ and hear Ezra Koenig covering ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’.

For most of the album, the charm is Lewis’ lyrics of wide-eyed innocence and optimism dancing around Hunter’s indie dance/bubblegum electronica. A highlight of the album, ‘Give Me Your Love’, has an antimetabolic (fancy, I know) chorus so winningly earnest you can’t help but hum along, and the guitar on ‘Please Hercules’ provides a more tactile platform for the Daniel Johnstone-inspired vocal, reinforcing it into a wholly endearing track. It’s a project full of interesting ideas, warbling synths and syncopated beats splashing about with a liberated glee. 

It’s well worth a listen, too, though at times its electronic sheen blinds in the face of its more serious subject matters: the ‘Free Gaza’ line in ‘Tiempo’ shimmers into an echo, before a ‘wavy/navy’ rhyme gives you tonal whiplash. Maybe, I should start recommending albums like a dentist. Limit your Hot Fruit to meal time, lest you’re eroded in its swells of lovely syrup.

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