Artist: Fairground Attraction
Release: Ay Fond Kiss.
Discogs: 1852165
Released: 1990
Label: RCA
Catalog#: PD 74596
Format: FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue / CD
Country: Europe
Style: Rock, Folk, World, & Country, Folk Rock, Skiffle

Tracklisting:

01. Jock O'Hazeldean (3:06)
02. The Game Of Love (3:25)
03. Walking After Midnight (2:49)
04. You Send Me (4:43)
05. Trying Times (3:53)
06. Mystery Train (1:59)
07. Winter Rose (3:31)
08. Do You Want To Know A Secret? (2:32)
09. Allelujah (Live) (3:32)
10. Cajun Band (3:01)
11. Watching The Party (3:30)
12. Ay Fond Kiss (3:19)



Review
Fairground Attraction's recording career was short and sweet: following the truly classic and phenomenal platinum seller `First of a Million Kisses' in 1988, the band's songwriter and artistic inspiration, Mark Nevin, left the band in the middle of recording the second album.

`Ay Fond Kiss' was put out by RCA in 1990 in the wake of the band's demise. It basically consists of `B-side material' and FA's studio recordings of various covers, plus a sensational live-performance of `Hallelujah', probably FA's best-ever song.

Unexpectedly the album is very, very good, runs FoaMK close, and is in no way second-best. From a rendition of Sam Cooke's `You Send Me' to jazz numbers `This Game of Love' and `Walking After Midnight' it's full of polished, tight, joyous music that will make you want to get up and dance.

Only one or two numbers (maybe `Cajun Band' and `Watching the Party') fall short of excellence. It's great to hear Eddi Reader singing in full-blooded Scottish dialect: both the opener `Jock O'Hazeldean' and the wonderful, virtually unaccompanied closer `Ay Fond Kiss' - a poem by the great Robbie Burns here set to music and sung with power, depth and conviction - are fine examples, the latter a high-point in FA' s recordings. If you've never heard this title track please give it a listen, and you might appreciate how good a singer Reader can be.