Album Review: Alphabutt by Kimya Dawson

Ex-Moldy Peaches singer Kimya Dawson enjoyed some unexpected success recently due to her contributions to the Juno soundtrack, but this solo album is directed toward a much different audience. She and a team of kids have made children's album Alphabutt, presumably a result of the singer becoming a mother a couple of years ago. Reviewers who were expecting an album for grown-ups haven't been thrilled by this collection of songs about potty training, teething, bears and little monster babies, but if you listen to it from the intended perspective, it's a great take on music for children.

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The unspoken joke about this album of children’s music from the Juno-soundtrack star is that Kimya Dawson’s purposely primitive anti-folk songs have always sounded like the stuff of nursery-school rhyme time. So what distinguishes the tunes on Alphabutt from Dawson’s other work? More poop talk! ”F is for fart/G is for gorilla fart,” goes the alphabet-instructing title track. (And H? ”Huge gorilla fart.”) That said, don’t assume Dawson can’t get in a grown-up laugh: ”Bobby-O” is a portrait of the ”skinny younger brother of Fabio.” B+DOWNLOAD THIS: Listen to ”Bobby-O” on last.fm .

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Since Kimya Dawson's adult albums are filled with cutesy-pie rhymes and schoolyard singalongs, it makes perfect sense that the singer/songwriter has given herself over to a full-on children's album. It also makes perfect sense that it's called Alphabutt, as Dawson has always shown a propensity for juvenile jokes, and that title should also be a tip-off that just about every other song on this 15-track LP sports a joke about farting. Kimya doesn't limit herself to farts: there's poop and pee, even references to growing hair "down there," all delivered with a child's fascination with discovering their body -- and sometimes delivered with a couple kids singing along, too.

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