Sing-Along Songs from Glasses Island - The Speks

The first Irish kids music act I've come across, this is a nursery rhyme CD containing many of the usual suspects, but played as (and in some cases set to) Irish traditional music - for example "Miss Polly had a dolly" is set to the tune of The Little Beggarman. It's refreshing to hear children's music sung in a Irish accent, and to hear some of the pre-school songs you get here that you don't tend to find on UK and US releases (like Michael Finnegan and The Scarecrow). It's well put-together by what sounds like proper trad musicians (flute, guitar, banjo, tin whistle, fiddle, etc) with a great line in close harmonies.

I like it. Haven't tried it out on the kids yet, but I reckon they'll dig it too. You can listen to it on bandcamp here.

Outside Voices - The Pop-ups

There's a bit of chat about these guys on the kindie blogosphere at the minute, so I thought I'd check them out on bandcamp. Whoa! They're very good! It's pretty diverse - from the Flaming Lips-ish first track to the squelchy electronics of "Subway train" to the dubby reggae of "Balloon" ... and that's only the first three tunes. These are very well-produced real, proper songs (with a kicking brass section) that you'd be delighted to hear on grown-up radio. Even the weaker tracks here are head and shoulders above most of their kindie contemporaries. Very impressed.

You can listen for yourself on bandcamp here

Cinderella - Prokofiev / Sleeping Beauty - Tchaikovsky (narrated by Brian Cant)

If you're introducing people to classical music, ballets are a great place to start as the music tends to be extra dramatic. This CD has music from the two famous fairytale ballets interspersed with the stories themselves as told by Brian Cant.

I especially like Cinderella as it's a bit more modern-sounding and less formal, but the music in both cases is very very good. I love the narration because it's so NOT dumbed-down - plenty of long sentences and no cutesy-ness.

Isabelle, alas, doesn't like it as much as I do, I think primarily because the musical pieces are quite long, and 5 minutes of instrumental music between story fragments is just too much for her, no matter how dramatic it is. Maybe when she's older.

Disney's Lullaby Album

One of the best-sellers on the kids tunes site. The tunes are all familiar - stuff like "When you wish upon a star" and "Wonderful world" - and it's played by real musicians. The arrangements are vaguely easy-listening-ish but very good - it works as pleasant background music for grownups as well as for sending kids to sleep (which it has done successfully in my house many times). The instrumentation is very lush (lots of strings!) which I expect means it's good at blocking out ambient noise and so work particularly well in noisy places (I can't vouch for this myself though as we live out in the countryside where it's quiet).

Buy it now on www.kids-tunes.com

RealSleep

Designed by a "neuroscientist", this takes itself very seriously - lots of science-y twaddle about the vestibular system and binaural beats and arousal centres in the liner notes, plus the hilarious warning "Do not use when operating heavy machinery".

Having said that, the first time I put this on for Heather she fell asleep almost instantly. I was impressed, but the feat was never repeated. It's actually quite a decent lullaby album if you ignore the foolishness - well-known classical pieces nicely played on violin and piano, although the sudden changes in the volume and whooshing effects are a bit off-putting.

Play

A 2007 compilation of (mostly original) music for kids from the underground scenes of Seattle and Baltimore. More left-of-centre than most stuff aimed at kids, this has songs that would very much fit in to the Dublin underground scene and so it feels like I'm on home turf here. There's indie rock with various degrees of poppiness and/or punkiness, there's electronic music, there's post-rock-y stuff. The standard is really high - there's only one poor tune (by the best-known band, funny enough (Mudhoney)), and the rest are good with a few fantastic ones like Mary Timony's "Clap your hands" and Young Fresh Fellows' "Picnic". The words are good too - no preachiness, no talking-down, no over-eagerness.

Niamh has an issue with some of the singers' pitching, but the songs are really good and Isabelle loves quite a few of them. Recommended.

Putumayo Kids presents African Playground

Mostly lightweight African pop, including a few tunes you might have heard before, like "Mbube" (European-ized as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight") and Them Mushrooms' "Jambo Bwana".

Surprisingly same-y, given the vast size and diversity of the continent. Although I like a few of the songs it's a bit light for my taste, and there's lots of African music out there that I much prefer.