"I LOVE your new CD! Rilee fell asleep to Dreamland on repeat last night. I need to buy some more for gifts!" - Kathy Blanchard "We're rockin' out right now to Press Play! Love it!! It looks and sounds amazing! Lucy is walking around the house with the case!" - Alyssa Harris In addition to being one of the most dynamic performers around, Rebecca “Stolie” Stoelinga sees something that most of us do not; fortunately for the world, she is never reluctant to share her gift. Stolie brings this clairvoyance to her newest album, Press Play!, which is light, delightful, and surprisingly deep for a supposed kids' album. Listening to Press Play! has proven to be a truly dichotomous experience. I know it is an album intended for the ears of children, yet I cannot help but notice that the short, poppy tunes also evoke a feeling that resonates on a seriously mature level. The cleverness of Press Play! lies in the duality -- these songs are tackling children’s themes, and Stolie does this as well as anyone, but look closer: each song is expansive, varied, and intelligent enough for the adult world. Press Play! is sequentially logical and melodically diverse, running the gamut of genres from country to hip hop. It is also as catchy as anything I have heard all year; the hook-laden pop songs seem as if they could fit as easily into an elementary school assembly as they could being played full volume at the club on a Friday night (Hear “So Big”). Stolie is a gifted story teller. She has that rare ability to transport the listener into the picture she is painting. “For dessert it doesn’t hurt to have chocolate chip cookies,” she sings in the endlessly catchy, “Chocolate Chip Cookies.” The picture she paints—the simple joy of baking and being creative in your kitchen—left the distinctive smell of baking cookies in my nose for hours, and the memory of doing such thing as a kid on my brain for days. Stolie is relentlessly optimistic and attuned to life in a way that makes her songs stretch colorfully and fantastically across the mind of the listener. She brings out the big guns in the poetically-titled “See Saw Seen.” Atop a traditional Irish folk musical landscape (replete with Irish whistle), she croons about the sunset of today and the blue skies of tomorrow in a way that left endless green pastures reeling through my mind and a tear in my eye. In an age-obsessed culture in which everyone seems terrified of getting older, Stolie’s record serves as a reminder that life is not meant to be spent cowering in fear of the inevitability of aging; rather, she imparts gentle lessons in each track to remind us that life is a celebratory endeavor and that the lessons of our youth should never be forgotten. In "New Clothes" she sings “This is how it goes when you grow,” putting forth an axiom that is as child-themed lesson as it is Kurt Vonnegut prose line. In “You are Getting Older” she places symbolic lyrics atop a Beatles-esque acoustic guitar to perfectly capture the bittersweet feeling that accompanies a birthday. We are all getting older, but there is nothing to fear. "I Just Wanna Dance” Stolie sings with blunt poetry, hitting this universal feeling as directly as an arrow to the bulls-eye. Certainly dancing is an activity equally enjoyed by the young and the old alike, and Press Play! provides ample opportunity for us to do so. For what is life but a dance to be joyously danced? Stolie understands this more than most and all across the album she sings the secrets of the child heart—the wonder, the awe, the simple pleasure of rising each day to learn anew—imploring us to remember as we go. After all, aren’t we all kids at one time or another? - Review by Stephen Mulcahy