VA- The Planet Sleeps

Everything about this CD, from its eye-popping cool packaging to its beautiful booklet, is wonderful, perhaps peerless. It's a study that spans 16 countries, catching paeans to childhood sleep from varied traditions. The set traverses the Cape Breton Gaelic tradition with the Rankin Family, Haiti with pop stars Boukman Eksperyans, and the African continent with music from Tonga, Algeria, and Cameroon. Despite their distances from each other, at times the songs sound quite alike. Voices might begin alone but then gather into choral size, with a reliance on wordless passages to emphasize the flow of time as sleep encroaches. In execution, the surprises are many. Algerian Houria Aïchi sounds East Indian; the Traditional Japanese Music Ensemble of New York sounds poised somewhere between a stately concert of historical court music and a touching homage to childhood; and German singer Michelle sounds pop-music ready even as she toes the line on singing a sleep-triggering song. Beyond being a great collection of international music, this is probably the most interesting mix available of cultural voices approaching the issue of children sleeping.

1 The Rankin Family (Canada) - Chм Mi Na Mуrbheanna
2 Sherrilyne Blakey-Smith (Native American/Iroquois) - Yhanaway Hay Yowna
3 Hun Sarath With Mark Marder (Cambodia) - Phnom Penh Lullaby
4 The Kingdom Of Tonga Cultural Group (Tonga) - Ana Latu
5 Houria Aпchi (Algeria) - Berceuse
6 Familion (Chile) - Hace Tuto Guagua
7 Boukman Eskperyans (Haiti) - Mayi A Gaye
8 Maria Doyle Kennedy (Irlanda) -Ag Criost An Shol
9 Wes (Cameroon) - Sweet Bitowo
10 Baluji Shrivastav (India) - Sleep, Queen Of The Dolls
11 Sophie Meriem Rockwell (France) - Fas Do Do, Colin Mon Petit Frure
12 Yermi Kaplan And Haya Samir (Israel/Arabic) - Noomey
13 Traditional Japanese Music Ensemble Of New York (Japan) - Itsuki No Komoriuta
14 Michelle (Germany) - Schlafe Mein Prinzchen, Schlaf Ein
15 Hinewehi Mohi (New Zealand/Maori) - Moe Moe
16 The Trebvic Choir (Bosnia/Herzegovina) - Oj Talasi