Review: Blink of an Eye - Frances England

I've had the occasional thought over the past few years about what kids music might sound like a few years from now.  What happens when the kids who grew up connected online and encouraged in a DIY world become parents themselves?  What happens when mass-market TV gives way to a million tiny screens (or at least a thousand different programmers)?  When parents have no idea who Pete Seeger is (but have memories of that Lumineers concert they went to once)?

I don't think Frances England's fourth album Blink of an Eye is the answer to any or all of those questions, but it is an answer that presages it.

If on her previous album Mind of My Own , England cranked up the volume and the energy, on this new recording, the San Francisco artist dials it all back a bit.  It's not that England has abandoned melody -- the title track which leads off the album, for example, has a lovely wordless ending to the chorus (helped no doubt by the presence of Elizabeth Mitchell and Caspar Babypants on the track).  But it's all very jangly -- producer Dean Jones and England employ a ton of different percussive instruments throughout the album (I'm pretty sure "Move Like Saturday Night" uses even more different items for percussion, if that's possible).

Although the production values are much higher than those on England's debut Fascinating Creatures, famously recorded as a preschool fundraiser and the first time she'd made an album, the impulse is the same.  It's a very-DIY sound equal parts folk and indie rock, put together with craft and care.  "Little Wings," even though it moves forward propulsively on Morgan Taylor's guitar work, is a quiet piece.  On a number of the songs, England chooses to deemphasize her vocals -- the result on those tracks is impressionistic in effect, the aural equivalent of that collage of an album cover.

And that's really what England is aiming for (and succeeding) lyrically.  Many of the songs are fleeting glimpses -- memories -- of family life and parenthood.  "Blink of an Eye" is the most obvious, but it's the dreamy "Salt Water Spin" and "Look How the Light Dances with Trees" that feel like England telling herself -- and by extension her family and us, the listeners -- "Don't. Forget. This."

This album will be most appreciated by kids ages 5 through 9, though its mellow nature will have a broader appeal for quiet-time spins.  You can listen to the whole thing at England's music page. 

Frances England has carved out a career making very personal music for families -- more so than many artists, I believe she thinks specifically about her own family as the audience.  This approach -- challenging oneself to learn new skills and then reflecting their life outward using those newfound skills -- is one area where I think kids music will evolve.  Maybe even one day a couple decades from now a 28-year-old new parent will remember those albums they listened to on "CD" or an "iPhone," pick up an instrument (or a computer), and try to convey those same dreamy feelings to their own child.  One can hope, anyway.  Highly recommended.

 Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Review: Recess - Justin Roberts

I recently watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi , a 2011 film about Jiro Ono, an 85-year-old sushi maker whose small restaurant in the basement of a Tokyo office building has received three Michelin Guide stars, signifiying it as one of the best restaurants in the world, one worth visiting a country for solely to eat at.  It's a beautiful movies in many different ways, and makes many points about craft, dedication, and skill.  (It also will make you hungry for sushi, but that's not relevant here.)

Watching the movie came at a fortuitous time for me as a reviewer, because I'd been banging my head for weeks  -- virtually -- trying to figure out how to write a review of Justin Roberts' latest album, Recess.  It is, as I've noted before, difficult to write about musicians who consistently release high quality music for families.  How do you write "this is great" without boring your audience (or, almost as importantly, yourself)?  And with Jiro , the answer came to me -- through the prism of the difficulty of maintaining one's craft over an extended period of time.

Justin Roberts released his first album for kids, Great Big Sun, in 1997; this new album is his ninth.  There is not a kids musician today who has a discography of original music for kids and families as consistently great and large as Roberts has produced over the past 16 years.  Other have a great discography featuring reinterpretations of classic songs or have fewer albums or written over a shorter period of time, but let's stop here to think about the dedication to craft his career has entailed. Sixteen years of crafting songs with a singular audience in mind.  Roberts didn't go full-time to kids music until the early 2000s, and he's now putting together a couple kids' books, but for the most part, that's more than 15 years doing a single thing over and over.  Is it any wonder that Roberts' songwriting skills are so sharp?

Many of Roberts' songwriting hallmarks are on display in Recess, starting with the irresistible title track.  Child narrator with enthusiasm on full display?  Check.  Internal rhymes?  Check.  Spelling?  Check.  (OK, I wouldn't necessarily suggest that spelling is one of Roberts' hallmarks.)  All that wrapped in powerpop that seems that seems like it can't get any more powerpoppy until he finds the amp that goes to 11.  It's a great song, among Roberts' best.  (Critic's obligatory fawning praise for producer Liam Davis and the whole Not Ready for Naptime Players, who bring Roberts' songs to vibrant life?  Check.)

His songwriting skills are such that at this point he's willing to tackle one of the most obvious (and usually tired)  subjects in kids music -- princesses and girls wearing pink -- and he completely turns it on its ear, offering up a song that many adult listeners will hear as an allegory about how it just takes a handful of people changing their attitude to overturn outdated ways of thinking ("It seems so obvious to us, it's hard to understand the fuss").

As the album proceeds, the longtime Roberts fan will hear echoes of previous songs -- I can't listen to "Hopscotch" without thinking of "We Go Duck" and their celebrations of childhood games, or "I'll Be an Alien" without several songs about kids dreaming of their escape like "Backyard Super Kid."  There are the songs that serve up an entirely different musical interlude mid-stream such as "Every Little Step."  And, yeah, there seems to be a direct line (in reverse) from the narrator of "Check Me Out, I'm at the Checkout" to that of "Meltdown!"

To me, the way this album differs from its predecessors is Roberts' increased emphasis on songs about parenthood.  In the past, those celebrations of parenthood have been more oblique (the sideways glance at the parents in "Cartwheels and Somersaults," still my all-time favorite song of his).  And on Recess, songs like  "School's Out (Tall Buildings)" take that same approach.  But a song like "Every Little Step," though ostensibly (and I'm pretty sure in actuality) about dog ownership by the dog, is easily heard as a celebratory song about the parent-child relationship.  "We Got Two" is a song about twins, but from the parent's perspective.  "Red Bird" carries on Roberts' tradition of ending his album on a gentle note, but if you take a step back, it's hard to believe the journey the album takes from the album opener to the string-assisted ballad at the end.  Yet they seem part of a whole, enthusiasm yielding to unconditional love and wonder.

Like the rest of his discography, the album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 9, though he obviously has wider age appeal.  Roberts has decided to limit his music for digital streams on services such as Spotify, and his taste for the analog extends to the gorgeous packaging for the CD, which includes a lovely cover courtesy of Ned Wyss.  Wyss also designed the secret robot in the packaging, who is your child's (and your) guide through a secret website featuring activities for your child and a treasure trove of JR rarities for, well, probably you.  (And me.)

It's actually those rarities such as a 2002 live recording of "Yellow Bus" that bring us back to the beginning, to the importance of craft. Even "Yellow Bus," a classic, fun and funny song in its own right, might only be the sixth or seventh best song on Recess.  On the one hand, in its recapitulations of themes and styles I could say that Justin Roberts' career up to this point has led him right here to this album.  But that might suggest some sort of finality to the journey, and the thing that I've realized is that he's going to continue crafting great music.  Recess  is a great album, Roberts' best (though that's a close call, to be sure), but I also know that it's very likely that one day he will release something even better.  Highly recommended.

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

Itty-Bitty Review: Bandwagon - Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights

The New York-based musician Joanie Leeds has spent the past few years gradually developing her career as a kindie musician.  She's picked up a band (the Nightlights), a fanbase outside New York, and on her latest album, Bandwagon , she takes some big strides toward finding her own voice in the kindieverse.

Those strides begin with Leeds' voice in particular.  Perhaps it has sounded this good on previous albums and I just was too dim to hear it, but on this album, you can hear just how versatile that voice is, on crunchy garage rock ("Are We There Yet?") or a slow bluesy number ("Use Your Words"), among other tracks.  Whether it's Leeds writing songs that use her voice to more varied effect or producer Dean Jones giving her voice the spotlight or some combination of the two, it pays off nicely.

I hear two Joanies on the album -- one is the Leeds willing to be goofy and write songs laser-targeted at the six-year-old in your life ("Back to School," "Helmet," "UFO"), the Joanie that's always been present on her records.  The other is the singer who writes very child-friendly pop songs (the gorgeous and winsome "Falling," "Little Cloud," and the rousing folk-pop of the title track featuring Rachel Loshak and the Okee Dokee Brothers' Justin Lansing).  This other singer also gets Jonatha Brooke to duet on "Family Tree."  While Leeds has never been solely goofy, this other songwriting approach gets more airtime than before, and I think it's a good thing.

The 41-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 8.  You can listen to album clips here.   Bandwagon is my favorite Joanie Leeds album yet, and I get the feeling that the best is yet to come.  Recommended.

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

Itty-Bitty Review: I'm Not a Bully! - Josh & Gab

I am not a big fan of music about bullying.  I haven't found a lot of it interesting, believing it doesn't say much more than "think about others" and "don't bully" in the most obvious way lyrically and musically.  (Please note: it should go without saying that I think Bullying Is Bad, but since I've just stated my aversion to the bullying music subgenre, better safe than sorry.)

So when I say that I'm Not a Bully!  is an anti-bullying album I'm OK with, that's the opposite of damning with faint praise.  The Pittsburgh-based duo of Josh Verbanets and Gab Bonesso -- AKA Josh & Gab -- have a school anti-bullying assembly, so there are the songs that get the crowd pumped ("Everybody Clap Hands") and make the administrators happy ("I'm Not a Bully," "I'm a Leader").  They're catchy, but I'm far more interested in the songs that don't spell everything out -- "Hurry Up and Get Well" is a gentle song to a sick or injured friend that never addresses exactly what has waylaid him or her.  And "Nine O'Clock Behind The Jack Rabbit" is a song from the perspective of someone challenged to a fight -- although it resolves peacefully, what sticks in the mind is the nervousness felt by the protagonist.  It's an awesome song.

The songs here are going to be most interesting to kids ages 7 through 12.  You can listen to the whole album via the widget below.  Again, focused as it is on anti-bullying efforts, the whole album isn't necessarily designed for repeat listening in the car.  ("Nine O'Clock" and "Hurry Up" are exceptions.)  But you can do much, much worse in this genre, and it's definitely recommended if you're in the market for that particular purpose.

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

Review: Deep Sea Diver - Recess Monkey

Another summer, another Recess Monkey album.   No kindie band challenges the kids music reviewer as much as the Seattle trio: their amazing productivity (at least one album a year for the past eight years, plus a second one to be released later this year) and consistently high quality makes it difficult for humble reviewers like this one here to figure out how to say what is essentially the same thing ("this is really good -- you should get it") in new ways.  (No, I will not be writing this review in limerick form.)

All the qualities that have endeared Recess Monkey to thousands of families nationally from their Pacific Northwest perch are in ample display on their brand new album Deep Sea Diver . Humor (the wry look at those scavenging birds in the mellow Beatles-esque "Seagull" or the punny title of "Choral Reef"), kid-focused topics (disco-dancing with "Walkie Talkies" and complaining about being short in "Shrimp"), and, yes, hooks galore.

I mean, what did you expect on an album themed around the ocean and water -- of course  there would be hooks.  The catchiest tracks are front-loaded -- "Tambourine Submarine" is a pure pop hit, and the samba-tinged "The Deep End" will have you singing along with the chorus or dancing (if not both).  But there are some gems buried on side 2, as it were -- "Seagull" is a tiny gem of a portrait and the back-and-forth sonic touches on "Making Waves" neatly echo the song's subject.

Musically, Drew Holloway and Jack Forman sound as good as ever, with new drummer Korum Bischoff essentially introduced to the band's audience in track #2 "Fish Sticks" by showing off his ample chops.  Friends such as Johnny Bregar and Dean Jones pitch in, and after listening to the strings on "Stranded," somewhere Burt Bacharach is thinking maybe he should do a kids' album.

As with most RM albums, this one's pitched at kids ages 4 through 8.  You can listen to the whole 41-minute album here.

So here am I at the end of my review and I still don't know if these words are adequate to convey how great this band is.  I'll just leave you then with Deep Sea Diver  is really good - you should get it.  Highly recommended.

Review: Pleased to Meet You - Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke

My appreciation for Key Wilde & Mr. Clarke is long-standing and deep.  My review of Rise and Shine, their first album from early 2010, felt to me less like a review than a summary of everything ​the duo had done in the couple years or so leading up to the album.

And to some extent I feel a bit the same way about their brand-new second album, Pleased To Meet You​.  It's been more than 3 years in the making, obviously, but beyond that, some of this music ("Animal Alphabet", for example, or "Raised By Trolls" and "Chuckers") has made its way into the world during that time.  So when I say that this album feels familiar, I can't always tell if that's because it actually is​ familiar or because KWMC have tapped into some timeless country-punk attitude.

In that review of their debut, I called the band (they're a quartet now, with a handful of guest artists, including producer Dean Jones, joining in) a "mix of Johnny Cash, Johnny Rotten, and Johnny Appleseed."  Sometimes, as on the opening title track (whose structure as a counting song is disguised by the propulsive shuffling beat and the British born-Clarke's slight sneer of a voice), they mix them up on the same song.  "Raised By Trolls" has a killer surf-rock guitar line, but the next track, "Wander Round the World" is a sweet and earnest bluegrass ode to travel.

If anything, Wilde and Clarke's songwriting has become even weirder.  "Lazy Raisins" is a ska tune about some raisins doing nothing but lying in the sun (which makes sense, when you think about it).  "King of the Town" is a rocker about a kid who bemoans his inexplicable election as head of the city until he makes some very sensible rules.  That's followed by "Conversation," a mini-operatic rocker in the vein of the Who about a kid confused by the adult chatter at a party which features the line, "Please excuse me / I have to step outside / My bike is double-parked."  And as mystifying that song is, I have no idea what "Bigga Bagga" is about other than silly wordplay and shouting "Oi!" a lot (as a result, I think it'll be a big hit with Little Boy Blue).

Which isn't to say that they can't be tender and linear -- "Take Ten" is a roots-rocker with layered harmonies that happens to be about frustration and taking a break.  But kids will relate because it's willing to sound how kids (and, occasionally, adults)​ honestly feel -- "This is the stupidest planet in the entire universe / It's so dumb / It's not fair / I've had enough / And I just don't care / Count to ten / Start all over again."

The 45-minute album will be most appreciated by kids ages 3 through 8.  You can listen to the entire album here.​  And of course the physical product includes illustrator Wilde's character-filled illustrations of assorted animals and people.  (Visit the KWMC website for stories behind some of the surprising appearances on the album cover.)

If you've read this far, it shouldn't be any great surprise that I think Pleased To Meet You​ is fabulous, an energetic blend of Americana and punk, of empathy and third-grade snark.  Fans of Rise and Shine​ should snap this up immediately, and the rest of you shouldn't delay much, either.  Highly recommended.