To teach her young daughter the value of language, Natalie Merchant came up with an original teaching method. She set more than fifty old parables, poems and stories for children to music, so that her dear daughter could learn everything about our beautiful (and also evil) world in a playful way. The collection of songs led to this album. Legendary American producer Joe Boyd called the result
… miraculous, and that claim is by no means an exaggeration. The children's poetry of British and American poets is beautifully cast in a musical form. Merchant generously scatters around with styles of which British folk and American jazz are the most important. But blues and roots are also featured. Merchant even ventures languid reggae at Topsyturvey World. A sticker on the cover mentions more than a hundred musicians who collaborated to realize this beautiful record. Still, Selections From The Album Leave Your Sleep nowhere sounds like a mixed bag and that is perhaps the greatest achievement of the American singer. (JE)more
