Music for Baby! by Various Artists (CD, 2007)

Amorfon (Japan)

4562144180049

22050129958

Various Artists

CD

2007

Music for Baby!

48 mins 42 seconds

Jazz

Stereo

Personnel: Meinrad Kneer (double bass). While Kindermusik: Improvised Music by Babies (amorfon 005) was designated as "a message to adult from baby," Music for Baby! (amorfon 004) is described as "a message to baby from adult." Rather than offering infants an exclusive, predictable, controlled and conventional diet of nursery rhymes, lullabies, and confectionary cuteness, amorfon presents an album of "cool," "interesting and stimulative artists" designed for healthy cognitive growth during those crucial early formative years. Artistically, this collection is distinctly different from most entries in the "baby music" category -- in fact some of the music on this disc might seem to have been deliberately selected as weird-to-outrageous choices for infantile listenership. The album opens with "Voice of the Hospital," an arresting episode credited to Owen Ashworth's solo act known as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (Cftpa). Other participants include a Serbian pop/rock group called Cinc; BusRatch performing a piece for turntable noise and continuo titled "Toy Sleepy"; electronic glitch wizard Ryoichi Kurokawa; the techno crunch beats of DAT Politics; Croatian composer Marko Ciciliani (whose angular "Pavilion" for eight violins will certainly prepare baby for the dissonances of real life); field recording collage artist Toshiya Tsunoda who specializes in the subtle world of minimal subsonic vibrations, and electronically enhanced steel pan improviser Yoshio Machida, who is the founder of the amorfon music label. Even if the more unusual aspects of this collection (especially, perhaps, the album cover photo of a painted, distended pregnant woman's abdomen) indicates a wild and mischievous sense of humor on the part of the producers, the overall message here is clearly that babies need to hear a wide range of creative sounds in order to develop into imaginative, resilient, and open-minded individuals. ~ arwulf arwulf

1

Darla Distribution

Japan