Review: Color Wheel Cartwheel - Laura Freeman

I've been waiting a long time to review this album, longer than I should. I'd been waiting for Austin, Texas artist Laura Freeman to release the follow-up to her 2005 album Color Wheel Cartwheel, thinking I'd include that album in a review of the new album.

Well, forget the new album (which will come out someday, just not today), because Color Wheel Cartwheel is pretty special; to wait any longer would just be wrong.

The album is, as you'd expect from its title, a concept album, dealing with colors. Down through the rainbow the songs move, from "Red" to "Orange," on through "Yellow," "Green," "Blue," and "Indigo and Violet." ("Purple" is thrown in there for good measure.) It'd be pretty easy to make color songs just by listing things that are of that particular color, but the what makes this album so much better are the differing stylistic approaches for each song. "Red" is loud and brassy, "Orange" is sassy ("You take a little yellow / you take a little red / Mix 'em up together and voila! / Orange, oh orange / Orange makes me wanna cha-cha-cha"). "Yellow" is a mellow, bluesy little tune, while "Green" is set to classic country music.

Certainly listing different items of particular colors help drive home the point for each song, but Freeman is also using the colors for jumping off into other stories (a philosophical discussion on blue jeans in "Indigo and Violet," for example). The differing approaches, the use of color to, well, color the songs, they give all the songs life. Interspersed between the songs are friends and musicians reciting the colors of the rainbow in various languages. I don't think there's any thought that kids will actually learn colors in a foreign language, they just subtly drive home the point about colors being all around us in the world. Freeman went to New Orleans to record the album, and she's pulled in contributions from a whole bunch of musicians.

Kids ages 2 through 7 will most derive educational value from the songs. You can hear samples of the songs at the under-30-minute album's CDBaby page.

I mentioned to Laura Freeman recently that Color Wheel Carthweel was a fun little album and she replied, "Well, we had a lot of fun making it." That fun is evident on this excellent little disk. I hesitate to call it an "educational" album, because every album is educational, but also because it unfairly narrows down the prospective audience. This is one of the rare "educational" CDs your family will listen to long after they've mastered the concepts inside. Definitely recommended.

Review in Brief: I Count To Ten and other Very Helpful Songs - David Tobocman

It's been nearly 7 months since I first watched (and wrote about) David Tobocman's fabulous video for his song "Home." (If you haven't watched it, stop reading this, click on the link, and see you back here in about 3 minutes. Really. Go now.)

Clearly I liked the video, so you might be wondering, why in the world haven't I review the rest of Tobocman's debut, I Count To Ten and other Very Helpful Songs? And the answer is... well, I have no good reason. I can't blame this on the dog eating the CD or a snowstorm -- sometimes good CDs just don't get reviewed on the site in a timely manner.

In any case, many CDs attempt to impart lessons to kids -- I know, I've heard a lot of them -- but very few do so in a totally appealing musical manner. This CD easily makes that small but distinguished list. I think there are a couple reasons for it. The first is that the songs are, for the most part, solid. The jazzy title track and "Brush Your Teeth," the pop of "My Rainbow," the country, banjo-inflected "Buttons and Bows" -- they're great melodies back up by well-crafted instrumentation. And more than half a year after I first heard it, I'm still moved by "Home," easily one of the top kids music tracks of the year.

The second reason for the album's appeal I think is that instead of conveying its lessons as a direct "you should do X" or "everybody feel Y," the lyrics are sometimes sung from a first-person perspective, telling the listener how the singer reacts. So the singer counts to ten and doesn't feel so angry ("I Count to Ten"), or the singer keeps his pajamas on through the night ("Jammies Song," based on a real-life problem Tobocman encountered with his daughter). It's not always the case, but there's very little sense of "should" here, and that makes the lessons easier for everyone to take.

The songs are most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7. You can hear lengthy clips from the 33-minute album here and here. David Tobocman's I Count to Ten and other Very Helpful Songs is a solid little album. I can't guarantee your kids won't blow their top as much or brush their teeth more willingly with repeated listens, but I'm pretty sure you or your kids won't blow your tops if you listen to this a lot. Recommended.

Review: Rock All Day, Rock All Night - The Nields

With their latest album, Massachusetts' The Nields joins the company of the Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam.

Really.

That's right, because on their new 2-CD family album, Rock All Day, Rock All Night, the Nields sisters join those two alternative rock heavyweights in putting out an album with both an uptempo and a downtempo disk. (Those two albums, in case you're wondering -- the Foo Fighters' In Your Honor and Pearl Jam's best-of rearviewmirror.) Now, I can't say that the Nields rock quite as hard as those bands do, but I'm also not sure there's anything quite as giddy on those disks as on the sisters' banter on the brass-band-accented "Muffin Man." (Did you know there was a whole neighborhood on Drury Lane? Well, you do now.)

The first disk is a mixture of folk songs and originals (some old, some new). The sisters have run a HooteNanny program for families with young kids, and many of the songs sound like they are come from that program. Unlike a lot of CD collections from kids and family music programs, however, the collection actually holds together as a decent listening experience even if you've never taken a class with them. It's probably mostly due to the fact that there are some really good songs here. The traditional "Going To Boston" kicks off the disk, and like many of the tracks, there's a life to the recording that encourages you to sing along. The brass band sounds great on "When The Saints Go Marching In," as it does on "Muffin Man" (as noted above). The new tracks are no slouches either, with "Who Are You Not To Shine" -- a shimmery folk-rock song and worthy successor to "Anna Kick A Hole in the Sky" from the last disk -- and "Superhero Soup," actually one of the oldest songs in the Nields' songbook, but re-purposed here. Not all of the tracks are great, but, like I said, as a whole, it holds together well.

The second, slower disk is, unsurprisingly, less focused on singalongs and more focused on great, slower songs. I hesitate to call it a classic lullaby disk as there isn't quite a hush-ness that I associate with lullaby disks. Instead, it's more like a warm nook on a cold day, encouraging you to stay put and contemplate the day and maybe drift off for a tiny nap. (Or, if you're a kid, play with your Legos or read a book.) One of my all-time favorite ballads, "Wild Mountain Thyme," makes an appearance, with the Nields' dad, John Nields singing along (as on the first album, he sings on several tracks). The Nields also engage in some re-purposing here, as "Easy People," one of their most famous songs, gets a simple treatment. I think I like this disk slightly better than the "day" disk, but that's just a personal preference for the more classic songs.

The first disk is probably most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7; the second disk is essentially all-ages. Right now, the disk only available through the Nields themselves (go here to order), though national distribution will start shortly). For samples, you're best off checking out the YouTube clips I've compiled here.

The Nields continue to make vital family folk music with humor and tenderness. Rock All Day, Rock All Night is an all-purpose collection of songs that will serve your family well in times both of play and rest. Definitely recommended.

Review: Alphabutt - Kimya Dawson and Friends

So, really, if you're pressed for time, you don't have to read this review of Alphabutt, the first kids' album from Kimya Dawson.

You can just look over at that album cover to the left and decide for yourself.

If you (or your kids) think that cutesy hand-drawn animals pretending to talk letters out of their rear ends are funny or cute or whimsical, you're going to like this album. If you think it's incredibly stupid, you're not.

For those of you needing a little more detail, or if you're not sure where your family stands on the important issue of speech and the mammalian gluteus maximus, read on.

Prior to this year, Dawson was probably best known as half of the duo the Moldy Peaches. Her kids music bona fides were pretty slim, limited to singing on the book version of They Might Be Giants' "Bed Bed Bed." (Though that's more than a lot of people who go on to release a kids album.) She sold an EP of 9 kids songs at her shows in spring 2007 (it was also called Alphabutt), but it was after the stunning popular success of the Juno soundtrack earlier this year (to which she contributed many songs) that she decided to go back into the studio and record more songs with her friends and family. The resulting album (including songs released on the EP) comes out this Tuesday.

Dawson's music at times has been called anti-folk, eschewing the polished craft of a lot of folk music, and that approach certainly is heard here. Toy pianos, choruses with many voices, the occasional indifference to pitch -- if you're looking for the smooth, everything's perfect sound of some kids music, you won't find it here. But to ask Dawson to make everything sound pretty would be like asking Madonna to play acoustic. Sure, it might be a worthwhile musical experience, but it'd be taking away everything that made the artist special to begin with.

The songs here are geared more towards a younger crowd, say, not yet in kindergarten. (It's not surprising to find out that Dawson's daughter just turned 2.) The title track is a little too precious (if you ever wanted to hear the word "butt" and "fart" a dozen times in a kids' song in the span of about a minute, here's your chance), but there are other tracks worth repeated spins. "I Like Bears" is a goofy song with a chorus that goes "I like bears / I like bears / I like bears a lot." It's a lot more catchy than you'd think from reading that chorus, and there are a lot of songs on here that very much sound like Dawson wrote them for her own daughter and purposefully kept them simple on record, sounding a lot like they probably sound in her own household. "Seven Hungry Tigers" is a somewhat more elaborate kids song with fun lyrics ("There are seven hungry tigers in my underwear drawer...") while "Happy Home (Keep On Writing)" matches a dreamy sound to a great chorus ("If you're breathing / you're still living / and if you're living / you are learning... just make sure your life's exciting." And on "Sunbeams and Some Beans," Dawson gets ever-so-slightly political, encouraging a character to "share beans" with others that don't have beans.

As I said, I think the album -- just shy of 30 minutes in length -- is targeted mostly to kids ages 5 and under. You can hear song samples at many internet locations (like here), but it's also possible that Dawson's label, K Records, will post songs for streaming soon.

As you may have surmised, Alphabutt is likely to be one of those love-it-or-hate-it albums. You'll either get it, or you'll think that it's a mess. I personally found it most enjoyable when Dawson reined in the goofiness just a tad -- at times, it's a beautiful album. More importantly, when I gave up trying to listen at a distance and instead joined in with the ears of a 2- or 3-year-old, singing along, maybe even out of tune, I enjoyed it more. I'm recommending the album, but take a look at that album cover one more time before you decide...

Seven Sleepy CDs: A Whole Bunch of Lullaby Reviews

I get lots of CDs, of course, and just like sometimes you'll see a whole of TV shows suddenly appear with the same theme, earlier this year I got a raft of lullaby/sleeptime CDs. I've collected some of the more interesting ones from that rush, plus a few slightly older ones that got overlooked the first time around.

That's right, folks, seven CDs. At least one of them's gonna put you (or your kid) to sleep but in, like, a good way. The list starts after the jump.
Cher and Gene Klosner's 2007 album Stardust Lullaby is a 2-CD collection of lullabies both traditional and original. It's the most lushly produced album here, and the wide-ranging instrumentation sounds great. I actually found it a little too lush for my taste; the first CD in particular seems a bit too peppy for relaxation. The second CD is quieter, and the last track, "All the Alphabets Are Going to Sleep," a simple song Cher and her husband used with their kids, quite lovely. If, however, you do like a little more production in your lullabies, this'll be a good bet. Listen to sound clips here and here.

Paul Cuneo's 1999 collection Rest Here is a collection of original lullabies, recorded primarily with voice and piano. There are some nice touches (the song "The Night Train" has a definite "train" sound to it) and some intriguing songs (the otherworldly-sounding "Jeremiah Lights the Fire." While the vocal/piano combination tires somewhat after 66 minutes, the gentleness and echoes of more traditional songs will appeal to the connoisseur of albums best played at 2 AM. (Listen to clips here.)

Longtime friend of Zooglobble Eric Herman released Snail's Pace in 2007, a collection of mostly previously-released songs. This isn't so much a lullaby album but, as the name implies, a "downtime" album, one you'd play when your kid needs a little break from the day. The collection includes a small reworking of Herman's classic "The Elephant Song" plus other gentle tunes. Some of the songs may cross the line between gentle and saccharine depending on where you put that line but on the whole, the songs are restrained without sacrificing all of their liveliness. (Listen to clips here.)

The recently-released Putumayo collection African Dreamland will be, because of the language barrier, the CD least likely to be sung along with. To me, it also sounded a lot more pensive and wistful -- it just seemed like there were a lot more songs in the minor key. That's not a bad thing, by any means, it just gives the album, which includes a wonderful Ladysmith Black Mambazo tune, a somewhat different tone than most of the albums here. (Listen to clips here.)

Lullabies and Wildflowers is the debut collection from Melissa Errico, and it takes a jazzier approach than any of the albums here. "Mockingbird" and "Hushabye" (AKA "All the Pretty Horses") sound like they'd be at home either at 11 PM in a dimly-lit nightclub or at 11 PM in a dimly-lit nursery during a nighttime feeding. Some of the songs are a little too uptempo ("Wildflowers") for a lullaby album, and it's definitely not underproduced, but the vocals are a highlight. (Listen to clips here and here.)

As with the Putumayo CD, the fact that many of the songs on World Music For Little Ears are not in English may make it harder for the native English-speaking family to get into the CD. Which isn't to say there aren't some wonderful songs here. The album is actually a sampler CD of songs from Ellipsis Arts' various "For Little Ears" CDs, so if you find your family grooving more to, say, the Latin-inflected or Celtic tunes, you'll know exactly where to go for your next multicultural lullaby CD. A good quiet-time album. (Listen to clips here.)

Finally, I happen to put the first album of lullabies from Alabama's Mae Robertson, All Through the Night (review) at the top of a very short list of essential lullaby albums. (It looms large over all of these CDs.) If I don't think its followup, 1997's The Sun Upon the Lake Is Low, is quite in the same league, that's expecting too much. Robertson and musical partner Don Jackson have put together another album of gentle lullabyes familiar (the sweet "Michael Row the Boat Ashore") and unexpected (Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game"). Even if it's just a little more produced than its predecessor, the folky arrangements (with hints of Irish and Celtic music) and Robertson's beautiful voice still make this a lovely album. (Listen to clips here.)