Chanelle & Friends – Creature Groove and Other Songs For Kids (13th Floor Album Review)
Creature Groove and other songs for kids is a new release from Papamoa-based Chanelle Davis (Tainui), a multi-award winning singer-songwriter and music teacher, winner of the 2013 APRA NZ Best Children’s Song for If I Was A Fuzzy Buzzy Bumblebee, among others.
For this collection of 12 original kids tunes, her second full children’s album, she is joined by regular band members husband and wife team Hayley and Daniel Munro, classically trained musicians and singers from Napier, and some special guests in the form of New Zealand taonga Dames Jools and Lynda Topp – aka the Topp Twins, Canadian-born but Kiwi-adopted Tami Neilson, the perennial kids’ favourite Suzi Cato, Wonky Donkey creator Craig Smith, Loopy Tunes Preschool Music, Music with Michal, and, all the way from across the ditch, The MikMaks.
The songs use simple language with repetition designed for road trips or dancing around the house that will keeps kids engaged and having fun while, hopefully, learning a bit more about the big wide world they’re gradually getting to know.
It’s not a new thing. Anyone with kids will be familiar with global superstars The Wiggles and their equally famous compatriots High Five, and, closer to home, Suzi Cato’s songs and TV shows and Craig Smith’s world-famous in New Zealand Wonky Donkey songs and books and how well the combination of music, movement and song work to develop kids’ language, comprehension and coordination.
The music is, as you’d expect, pleasant, harmonious, rhythmic and not too long at just over 2 minutes for most (with the one exception of Coromandel Road Trip at 4 minutes 33 seconds) reflecting that old adage shorter people have shorter attention spans.
There’s the familiar sounding kids’ stuff with jumpy-around tempo, chord progressions and springy noises. But there’s also stuff that breaks it all up so that you won’t go completely crazy while the kids are bouncy around the bedroom – some nice ukulele sounds on Rainbow Fish and the funky, laid-back reggae groove on Coromandel Road Trip.
There are multiple opportunities to get kid’s moving along to the songs:
Dig, dig, dig, dig in the ground… on Digging for Dinosaur Bones.
Little pekapeka hanging in the tree, I can’t see her but she can see me… Little Pekapeka.
Birds in the sky, they flap their wings, Fish in the swim, they learn to swim… the opening and title track Creature Groove.
Some of the language will introduce new, but uncommon words:
Glimmer in the light, shimmer in his eyes… Rainbow Fish
Unfamiliar, exotic animals:
Bilby, his name is Bilby, a cute marsupial, nocturnal, he wears a grey and white coat, he’s got a long nose… Bilby
Concepts of growth and change:
Tadpole swimming in a bowl, round and round they go… each verse introduces another change to the tadpole as it grows into a frog on Tadpole.
And, in that good-old Kiwi manner, there are plenty of laughs and naughty words to keep the adults engaged too:
I am a glow worm and I’m not glum, ‘cos I’ve got a light shining out of my bum… and plenty more on Glow Worm.
You’ll hear the familiar, guitars, piano and synthesiser, drums and ukulele and also some liberal smatterings of violin, which as a former violinist, is music to my ears and will help to expand littlies’ sound perception.
The production by Morgan Samuel at All Round Audio in Te Awamutu is world class and the illustrations that accompany the release are equally superb from Kuwi the Kiwi creator Kat Merewether.
Chanelle & Friends should expect more nominations for excellence from this record, if not big prizes. And, on a familiar theme of if the Aussies can do it then why can’t we, deserves a wider audience than little old New Zealand.
If you’ve got kids, or know someone that has them, go out and buy this LP. On the basis of this release, Chanelle & Friends deserve our support.
Alex Robertson
Creature Groove and Other Songs For Kids is out now. Click here to listen or buy.
