The problem with many charity albums is that, while the cause may be worthy, the music is often way below par, with even decent acts donating their mediocre musical cast-offs. Every now and then however, an album like The Cake Sale comes along and ticks all the boxes you can think of, and some that haven’t been invented yet. Good cause? Check, all proceeds go to Oxfam Ireland in support of their Make Trade Fair campaign. Musicianship? Exemplary: featuring various members of BellX1, The Frames, The Thrills, alongside the likes of The Cardigans’ Nina Persson, Neil Hannon, Graham Hopkins, Nick Seymour and Gary Lightbody. Songs? Stunning: written by Paul Noonan, Glen Hansard, Ollie Cole, Damien Rice, Emm Gryner etc.
The brainchild of BellX1’s Brian Crosby, The Cake Sale does for Irish musicians what The Reindeer Section did for Scotland’s: i.e. it makes a group of disparate songwriters and performers sound like the most talented and cohesive band in the world ever.
Who would ever have thought we could enjoy Josh Ritter making Paul Noonan’s ‘Vapour Trails’ his own? Or the gorgeous purr of Nina Persson’s voice and the languid, melifluous violin of Colm Mac Con Iomaire in the same song, and yet here they are, on Emm Gryner’s delicious ‘Black Winged Bird’. Meanwhile Gary Lightbody and Lisa Hannigan sound like they were born to duet together, on the jaw-droppingly amazing and infectious-as-chicken-pox ‘Some Surprise’. The ridiculously talented Lisa pops up again on the nerve-jangling, otherworldliness of ‘Needles’, a song penned by Damien Rice which gets better and better with each listen. Gemma Hayes has never sounded as fragile as on Glen Hansard’s ‘All The Way Down’, while The Frames’ frontman in turn does a sterling job with Ollie Cole’s masterful ‘Too Many People’ and Neil Hannon proves himself probably the finest performer of the love song anywhere on the planet on Matt Lunson’s Bowie-esque ‘Aliens’.
In short, The Cake Sale is a happy threesome of fabulous musicianship, incredible songwriting and a fucking amazing cause. Over the course of these nine songs, the listener is carried on a whistle-stop tour of all that is great about Irish songwriters and musicians: oozing quality from every quaver, this is the album other charity records aspire to be.