Wildlife in the Nursery KEITH BRAMICH comes face to face with the singing animals ... Nelson and Solomons    34479 30492

As far as I know, we've strayed into the worlds of jazz, experimental, crossover, sound effects, film music, recreations of historical church services and hymn tunes, but never before into nursery rhymes [listen -- track 11, 0:00-0:55].

A rather unusual and inventive disc, this -- a collaboration between keyboard player and arranger Lorin Nelson from Sausalito, California, USA and composer and counter tenor David W Solomons from Sale, Cheshire, UK. Taking advantage of the amazing technology available to the modern musician, and using lyrics wickedly adapted by Solomons and Terry Kluytmans, they've created a disc of childrens' songs, old and new, sung by Solomons (in one case, multi-tracked) and accompanied by Nelson in the guise of various electronic instruments and sampled animal and bird sounds.

Various styles are used -- one (Chicken Little) is a reggae number, one where 'Alice the camel has five humps ...' is sung to the tune of Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, and some feature Solomons as narrator. In five of them, though, the animals simply take over the show and sing on their own -- Old MacDonald sung by barnyard animals, Turkey in the Straw by farm animals, Three Blind Mice by cats and Hushabye Baby by forest animals. My favourite, rather different to the others, is Rockabye Baby, sung by whales [listen -- track 19, 2:05-3:07].

Nelson and Solomons must have had great fun sampling the animals and creating the songs. The results may not be to everyone's taste, but are certainly a curiosity, and could well become a hit with your children!

For help listening to the sound extracts here, please refer to our questions & answers page.

Record Box is Music & Vision's regular Saturday series of shorter CD reviews