Monday, September 28, 2015

EAR WORM: Andrew & Polly's Odds and Ends

Andrew & Polly with ukelele & accordion
I've been admirers of Andrew & Polly's work for some time.  I hear them a lot on Kid's Place Live, and their work is kooky, fun, and original.  I just got a hold of their new album Odds & Ends, and it collects a lot of the songs that I've heard over the last year.

Andrew Barkan and Polly Hall are a married couple that live in Los Angeles, where they work and perform.  Andrew, originally from San Francisco, has been instrumental (yes, I meant that pun!) in all kinds of film music and scoring, working on the Smurfs movie, and has composed the scores for over 30 independent films.

Polly, originally from Arkansas, co-founded a music for interactive company in Brooklyn, holds an MA in Computer Music from Brown University, and is a former Suzuki violinist.  Together, they have written music for Nickolodeon, lots of commercials, and they won the  2012 ASCAP Foundation Joe Raposo Childrens' Music Award for their first album Up and At' Em!

There's a great interview with them on ZooGlobble,  where you can find out that among other things, they are parents of an 18 month old, that they met in college where they both sang for A Cappella groups, and that they lived in Providence in 2006 when I was doing Bright Night.  I would have totally hired them for the New Year's Eve Festival, if I had known about them then!

Zooglobble, by the way, is a great resource for all things Kindie music.  You should definitely be reading it!

Buy Odds & Ends on Amazon.
The album Odds & Ends is a collection of songs that they've written over the last 5 years.  I've heard a few of them over the last couple of years. for a few years on Kids Place Live.  They do really delightful cover versions of Ghostbusters, the Beatles song Here Comes The Sun, and the Dylan song Forever Young.

 But it's their original songs that are the real winners.  I especially liked their song Grapes, which has a Laurie Anderson meets kid's music kind of feel, with a lot of talking/story.  It's funny and quirky and weird, and most importantly it's catchy.  It caught my attention, anyway.

 Most of their original songs are like that.

 Here's the song Grapes on Youtube:




The album came out on Friday (although it apparently previewed in Los Angeles at a 1 year old's birthday party!) Awesome party favor!

Other than the album, their latest project together is a cool  podcast for kids called EarSnacks.  It's for kids, featuring kids, and has lots of interactive features, questions, and just some wacky stuff.  Their latest episode is about all kinds of Balls (get your mind out of the gutter!) They play sounds of different bouncing balls, talk about boogers, which leads to a discussion of atoms, planets, and just about everything else.  It's a fun hang out session with them.  They produce a new podcast once a month or so.  (And I believe it also airs on KPL.)

You can listen to their podcast for free on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud or tunein.

Find out more about Andrew and Polly on their website:  http://andrewandpolly.com/

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