Review: When the World Was New - Dean Jones

There are more than a handful of kids music artists who, in their attempt to anchor their sound in the minds of potential listeners, describe their music in terms of other kids' musicians -- "[Band X] sounds like [Artist Y]." [Ed.: OK, I'm to blame for that at a reviewer's level, too.]

Dean Jones has never tried to do that, and even if he had, I have no idea who he'd compare himself to, kindie-wise. As ringleader of the band Dog On Fleas and two solo albums, Jones folds in dozens of instruments modern and ancient, styles jazzy and electronic, into songs that are so far away from subjects that make up the vast majority of most music targeted at kids that we call it "family music" because we have failed to invent another, more descriptive name.

Jones' third solo album, the recently-released When the World Was New, for example, is 33 minutes of music "loosely looking at the evolution of us silly humans." It features, among other things, the slow-jam waltz "Prehensile Grip," which wonders where we humans would have been without the ability to grasp things, and "Snail Mail," a funky ode to forgoing electronic mail for the purposes of interpersonal communication. He's not afraid of tackling weightier subjects like war ("Peace in the Valley") and the meaning of an animal's life ("A Sparrow's Soul"), albeit obliquely. This makes the album sound ponderous, which it's not -- it's jazzy and mysterious and generous and occasionally danceable.

The album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 and up. (Listen to a 5-song sampler here.) When the World Was New is an intimate album inspired by big questions -- why are we here? what are we doing? where are we going to? -- but never feels like a boring textbook. Instead, Jones' album is a series of (musical) essays that might prompt a few questions in the listeners' own minds, young and old. Definitely recommended.

[Disclosure: I received a copy of the album for possible review.]

Itty-Bitty Review: Underbirds - Underbirds

Kids music has seen a bunch of collaborations recently as kindie artists recognize strength in numbers, but most of those collaborations have been one-off pairings. Supergroup side projects? Not so much.

So for a couple guys obsessed with pop radio sounds of 25+ years ago, Todd McHatton and Morgan Taylor are pretty forward-thinking as their pairing Underbirds marks what might be the first kindie supergroup built for the long haul.

Of course, "kindie supergroup" implies the music on their self-titled debut is music recorded specifically for kids, and there are times when that's not entirely clear. Sure, songs like "Brilliance," whose narrator has clearly just mastered some talent, or "Here Comes My Friend," can be easily heard as kid-focused. But few of these pop gems sound like they were crafted with your local 5-year-old front-of-mind. Rather, they're songs about friendship and daring and love and (especially) nature that happen to be kid-friendly. If you gave this disk to your friend who has kept his or copy of Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend ever since college [raises hand] and just said they'd probably enjoy this new album, they'd enjoy it free of the cultural baggage that comes with being an adult enjoying "kids music."

At barely 25 minutes long, Underbirds is barely more than an EP, but it's filled with songs accessible to the entire family; it's probably most appropriate for kids ages 5 and up, lyrically. (Listen to "Brilliance" here.) Whether your kids are 4 or 14 (or you're a kid-at-heart 34-year-old), the pop-lover within you will find something to adore. Here's hoping partnerships like Todd and Morgan's last. Definitely recommended.

Review: Got a Minute? - Milkshake

If it's true that behind (or under) many a kids' musician is a child who encouraged (passively or actively) that musician to start making music for families, what happens when those kids grow up?

It's a question we haven't really answered in the 21st century. The Baltimore-area band Milkshake may be one of the first artists of Kindie New Wave to deal. As the kids of Milkshake's duo Lisa Mathews and Mikel Gehl reach tweenage and even teenage status, the band has suggested that their fifth album, Got a Minute?, will be their last.

Eleven years after the release of their debut Happy Songs, the band's changed quite a bit. Mathews and Gehl are still at the helm, of course, but the band's six people strong at this point and on the new album they bring in a bunch of guest artists, including fellow Marylanders Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer. That first album had preschool-friendly songs like "Fingers & Toes," but now Milkshake's recording songs like "Girls Wanna Dance" (about middle school dances) and "Workin' Kid Blues" (about doing errands and earning money at age 12).

In some ways, the band hasn't changed -- it's still on the eager side of the kindie spectrum, even if, just as kids do as they mature, some of the song subjects look to the world outside the narrator (see "Baltimore" and "More Than Me"). They've expanded their stylistic range over time (see on this album, for example, the hip-hop of "More Than Me" or the country of "Lookin Out the Window," the thoroughly sea chanty "We Just Wanna Have Fun," or even the instrumental "Seabreeze"), but for the most part they stick to making pop songs for growing kids.

If there is a weak link with the album it's that the inspiration for the "Got a Minute?" theme, their work for PBS Kids that comprises the final third or so of the album, sits uneasily with the rest of the album. There's nothing horribly wrong with the songs, it's just that the 18-minute block of more simplistic 1-minute songs targeted at 4-year-olds feels tacked on at the end of a more ambitious (in many ways) 36-minute album that precedes it.

The first two-thirds of the album are most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 11; the last third for kids ages 5 and below. You can hear several tracks at the band's music page.

After I listened to Got a Minute? once, on future spins I tended to skip past the opening track, a kinda-barely funny skit where Lisa and Mikel try to get their band into the studio to record a song only to find out that each bandmate is busy. Upon reflection, though, I think I figured out what Mathews and Gehl were doing with that track -- it was their take on how our kids, who once followed us everywhere, eventually move on to their own things -- and we parents need to move on too, in some way. If Milkshake is indeed moving on to other things, they've left their kindie fans with one last album that will no doubt please them. Recommended.

[Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.]

Cat Doorman Songbook - Cat Doorman (aka Julianna Bright)

It took awhile, but the kids music scene of Portland, Oregon is now humming along with a number of actual (not fake) kids musicians. Which isn't too surprising -- the city has a thriving music scene and has a very creative population generally. No wonder it's the home to Etsy.

Into this scene comes Julianna Bright, an artist (on Etsy, natch) and musician. For her foray into making music for families, she's created an alter ego of sorts, Cat Doorman. Her debut album, the Cat Doorman Songbook, contains echoes of other kids albums before hers, but the cumulative effect is one unlike just about anything.

You have the folk tradition on the leadoff track, "Peaceful," which begins, "We live to be peaceful / We live to be / Free from the whim / There's always something new to need. / We cherish what we use and / We share the rest. / We know this is how / It feels to be blessed." The song rocks harder than most songs with the same theme, perhaps, but the spirit is the same.

But even more important to the album than a spirit of peace and love is the celebration of do-it-yourself and individual expression. Songs like "Oh, the Inspiration!" and "Yeah!," as different as they are sonically, speak of the spark that drives people to create and express themselves. (It actually makes "So Many Words," the alphabet song that's the closest thing to a traditional kids song -- and it's quite a way from it at that -- seem safe by comparison.) On the ragtime-y "Two Old Shoes," Bright sings, "For every moment you could foment thoughts of loneliness / Or cause to be afraid / Line your sturdy hearts up children, throw them open and / Behold the world you made." The celebratory lyrics are paired with an organically rough but sweet folk-rock sound made by a large group of musicians including members of the Decemberists and the Corin Tucker Band.

The whole album builds up to the stunning "Lonely Girl," the most striking kids' song you'll hear all year. A slow song that begins as a character study of a distracted little girl ("Watch as she circles the school parking lot singing, 'This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine' / Here she is in her school's study hall / Losing time staring holes in the wall."), the song ends with a full-throated exhortation ("Lonely girl, yours is a timorous lot / You think too much Darling of what you are not and / Next time you do please recall you can sing / and the itch at your back is the beat of your wings and / They'll carry you forward to wonderful things.").

She had me at "timorous."

The 36-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 10. You can stream three songs here. I'd also commend the illustrated lyric sheet by Bright. Fans of the handmade nature of the album and packaging may also want to explore Night and Day Studios' iOS app for Little Red Wagon.

Fans of Frances England, Elizabeth Mitchell, Dean Jones, and Lunch Money should find in Cat Doorman a sympathetic soul. It's possible that if Cat Doorman Songbook didn't exist, Etsy would have had to create it. It reminds families of the worlds and possibilities that lie outside our door, if only we're willing to see them and create them ourselves. Definitely recommended.

Review: KidQuake - The Not-Its!

On the fourth album KidQuake, Seattle's Not-Its have settled nicely into their kid-pop-punk groove. Of course, "settling nicely" implies that perhaps this is a more relaxed and down-tempo album than its predecessors and that would be a total lie because this is one of the worst just-before-bedtime albums ever.

It starts out with the title track, which praises kids' energy (and hopes to channel it into changing the world), then moves on to the even higher-energy "Let's Skateboard" (if you, like me, listen to the song and wonder what a "stalefish" is, here's your answer). And then there's "Busy," which alternately celebrates the busy lifestyle (lots of "go's" and horns) while sonically suggesting that we're just all a little too busy. Band guitarist Danny Adamson sometimes jokes about new Not-Its songs "melting faces off," but this is definitely music to bounce to, with Sarah Shannon's vocal range another key component of the song's allure.

The band's lyrics and subjects have always been targeted right at young elementary schools, and over time I think they've improved their ability to write from the kids' perspective without talking down to them. Songs like "Participation Trophy" ("Second Grade basketball: 9th place! / Participation Trophy") and "Tarantula Funeral" ("Bob, we didn't know you very well / We never could tell just what you were thinking") serve as good counterpoints to the more eager/irony-free songs like "Walk or Ride."

The 28-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9. You can stream the whole album here. As always, the band's album packaging (once again courtesy of Don Clark) is visually distinctive, a nice complement to their tutu-ed and black-tied performance outfits.

From their debut album, the Not-Its have not made any great stylistic leaps, but rather have refined it. There's something to said for the methodic steps the band's taken, because KidQuake is their best album yet, a blast of fresh air, and a ton of fun. Highly recommended. (Except for right before bedtime.)

[Note: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.]

Review: Vamos, Let's Go! - Moona Luna

Musically digging into the crates of records from her past, Moona Luna bandleader Sandra Velasquez finds the sound of 50 years ago on the second Moona Luna album, Let's Go!.

It's not so surprising that "Do You Remember? (¿Te Acuerdas?)" has a girl-group sound given that song title, but Velasquez also turns lots of other basic preschooler and early-elementary school topics -- writing letters, telling time, the seasons -- into tightly-written songs that mimic the distinctive keyboards, rhythms, and vocal harmonies of post-Bill Haley rock-n-roll. (If you're like me, you'll probably spend not a small amount of time playing "spot the musical reference.")

Of course, this is Moona Luna, so this is all done with a Latin spin. The songs are strictly bilingual, giving English and Spanish lyrics equal weight, and I think Velasquez is getting better at integrating the two in her songs. Songs like "What Time Is It? (¿Que Hora Es?)" and "One of Those Days (Uno De Esos Dias)" have a distinct Latin sound thanks to the use of the accordion, and of course you can't reference rock and roll from the late 1950s without sounding a bit like Ritchie Valens.

The 26-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 6. You can stream the whole album here.

Despite the surge in interest in bilingual music for wee ones, Moona Luna is one of the few bands making music your family might conceivably listen to for pure enjoyment's sake. And, if mixed in amongst your Recess Monkeys and Laurie Berkners these songs pop up and happen to give your family an appreciation for a different musical sound and language, so much the better. Definitely recommended.

[Note: I was given a copy of the album for possible review.]