Songs to encourage sleep – from all around the world.  The new album from Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell is an oasis of calm in hectic times.

Release Date:  17^th November 2023

Label: Outside Music

Formats: CD / Digital

Now – here’s an interesting idea.  Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Abigail Lapell is no stranger to recognition for her work.  Her last album, Stolen Time (2022), was a huge success; it won Abigail her third Canadian Folk Music Award and increased her fanbase significantly into the bargain so when it came to thinking of a way to follow up that success, she came up with a novel idea – a collection of lullabies from around the world.  And, as it turns out, that was a pretty good idea; Lullabies – Abigail’s latest project – is a wonderful album; soothing, melodic and tremendously interesting – an oasis of calm in hectic times.

The project was inspired by a bout of insomnia that Abigail suffered during the COVID lockdowns of 2021 and 2022 and also by the attendant isolation that came with the deal.  I don’t think I’ve ever considered lullabies to be part of any folk tradition and, thanks to Abigail, I can now see that I’ve been missing something that’s pretty obvious: lullabies usually come complete with tunes that are mellow and comforting and they tell stories that take their imagery from deep cultural memories, spiritualism and cautionary tales as well as the comforting tableaux of the moon, stars, the fireside and dreamland.  And, they’re sung the world over, so they’re integrated into any folk culture you can possibly imagine.  In fact, they’re the perfect theme for a collection of folk songs with a difference, when you think about it.

Lullabies is a short collection; eight tracks, seven of them traditional songs from around the world and one Abaigail Lapell original – although even that one was derived and inspired from fragments of a song that Abilgail remembers her mother singing to her and her siblings.  Indeed, I wasn’t sure whether to call Lullabies an EP, an Extended EP or a mini-album.  In the end, I decided to dispense with the nit-picking and give it the description it deserves; it’s an album.

And it’s an interesting piece of work, too.  Lullabies includes songs sung in English, French, Hebrew, Spanish, Yiddish, German, Japanese and Welsh.  On quite a few of the songs, Abigail sings in the original language before completing the picture with her own English translation, but, in all honesty, it doesn’t really matter – Abigail brings an amazing level of comfort and warmth to her interpretations of the songs, whatever the language.  And the accompanying music is wonderful – just Abigail on her fingerpicked classical guitar (she’s an impressive player, by the way) and, the icing on the cake, lots of delightful vocal harmonies that she provides herself, for herself.

It’s the album’s single, Isabeau, that gets Lullabies underway.  Taken from the French lullaby, Isabeau s’y Promène (Isabeau Goes Walking), it tells the story of a young girl who ventures to the water’s edge, where she meets 30 sailors aboard a boat.  Abigail’s guitar is intricate and restful, her voice is intimate and comforting and the vocal harmonies add to the medieval feel of the song.  And that’s a pattern that recurs frequently throughout the album.

Go To Sleep, the only non-traditional song on the album has a bluesy, 1930’s hue.  Abigail has clearly learned her lullaby construction lessons well and the song is filled with what she calls “iconic nighttime imagery – moon, stars and a gentle light breeze, to evoke the comfort and familiarity of a restful night’s sleep.”  And there’s more of that wonderful self-harmonising as she urges the listener to “Laugh at all your troubles and kiss away your cares.”

Abigail’s version of the well-known Yiddish folk song, Ofin Pripitchek, (it means ‘On the Hearth’) is next and she plays a bluesy guitar accompaniment to lyrics that depict a group of children, sat by the fireside, learning the Hebrew alphabet from their rabbi.  And, from Yiddish, Abigail moves on to Welsh, and the mellow Suo Gan.  The song’s title means ‘Lullaby’ (or, literally, ‘Lull song’) and its Welsh origins come across loud and clear in Abigail’s delivery, even as she breaks into her “Sleep my dear one” English interpretation.

Continuing the world tour of entry into the land of nod, Señora Santana recounts the story of how a crying child is comforted after losing his apple (really!)  Once again, Abigail’s guitar and voice are deliciously soothing and, to cap it all -Spoiler Alert – the child is given another apple to replace the one he lost.

Although inspired by the 1971 Akai Tori recording of a traditional Japanese lullaby, Lullaby Of Takeda sounds remarkably Western in its structure.  It’s a sad number, in the tradition of the Japanese “child nursemaid” songs – sung by girls who were sent away from their rural homes to work as indentured servants in richer households.  It’s apparent that the requirement to comfort the children placed into care by their masters or mistresses is of less importance to the indentured girls than their longing to return to their homes, as Abigail demonstrates in her “Over the distant mountain, soon I will return – back to the land I came from, for my home I yearn” translation.

Abilgail’s self-harmonies reach an absolute peak for the heavenly Numi Numi, a Hebrew title that translates as “Sleep Sleep.”  The harmonies evoke night sky images as the lyrics reassure the sleeping child that his/her father will soon return from work – with a present!  And, it’s with an abridged version of the German lullaby, Der Mond ist Aufgegangen (The Moon Is Risen) that Abigail brings this intriguing album to its close.  It’s yet another evocative song, awash with more delightful harmonies, and, as a closing note, the song makes a plea for rest to be granted, despite the human frailties that affect us all.

Lullabies has opened my eyes to a hitherto disregarded part of the folk tradition.  Let it do the same to you.

Watch the official video to Isabeau – the lead single from the album – here:

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