Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Dan Sultan, ABC Music/Universal Music 2019.
A couple of weeks ago I reviewed an album of children’s songs by Regurgitator and this week it’s Dan Sultan’s turn.
Nali & Friends is a tale about unconventional, oddball, animals from different parts of the world.
It’s told in spoken word and song co-written by Dan Sultan and his longtime friend and collaborator, filmmaker, Rhys Graham.
The stories were inspired by the friend’s travels through Uganda and Kenya while they were working with the international welfare support agency The Thin Green Line Foundation.
It gave Dan and Rhys the opportunity to observe wildlife up close and it was the sometimes quirky behavior of young animals that particularly took their fancy.
Actually, this is not the first time that Dan Sultan has worked on a kid’s album. He has previously collaborated with The Wiggles and Play School.
The story line follows the journey of Nali, a young arctic tern that has a crooked wing, as she gets lost while journeying with her family from the north toward the South Pole.
Along the way she encounters all sorts of animals in the jungles of Uganda to the highlands of Borneo and the deserts of Australia.
The single Tembo, is about a baby Giraffe that was raised in an elephant orphanage and grows up believing that she is an elephant.
It’s based on a real life experience of Dan and was the first story and song written for the album.
Over the course of the album the young listeners are introduced to a cast of quirky characters such as Bobby the rock’n’roll blobfish, Bwindi the flatulent gorilla and the sensitive frill-necked lizard Gulamana.
In the process they learn about friendship, kindness and how to care for the world around them.
As with Regurgitator’s Pogogo Show, Nali & Friends has been turned into a stage presentation. Dan will be doing live concerts in Sydney and Melbourne so look out for them.
The great thing about these two children’s albums is that neither of them talk down, or perform in a child-like way, to their young audiences.
Dan plays and sings his heart out and these songs could be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.
