Laura Veirs, 'Tumble Bee' (Raven Marching Band)

Don't let the phrase "for children" deter you from Northwest folk singer-songwriter Laura Veirs' utterly enchanting and sweet new album, "Tumble Bee." Inspired by the birth of her first child, Veirs' eighth album is 30 minutes of pure joy — for kids, sure, and anyone else. "Tumble Bee" is populated by frogs, dogs and foxes, and Veirs sings their stories perfectly in her youthful lilt, paired with whimsical phrasing and giddy instrumentation.

The songs are nabbed from the American folk songbook, including covers of tunes by Woody Guthrie and Harry Belafonte, as well as five traditionals. There's not a bad one in the bunch, but particularly delightful is the title track, with its stutter-stop melody. Also great: the yodeling ballad "Prairie Lullaby" and the let's-go-do-si-do "Soldier's Joy," a duet with The Decemberists' Colin Meloy. My Morning Jacket's Jim James makes an appearance, as does banjo great Béla Fleck.

Joanna Horowitz, Special to The Seattle Times

Judy Collins, 'Bohemian' (Wildflower)

Fifty years and more than 40 albums into her career, folk icon Judy Collins offers "Bohemian," a collection inspired by life in 1960s Southern California. (It's being released in conjunction with the singer's memoir of her life at that time.) Collins penned four tracks; the others are no-frills interpretations of songs by Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Webb and others. Collins fans will be happy that her ethereal voice remains the focus. With such nostalgic material, her breathy soprano can push the lyrics into syrupy-sweet. Case in point: a cover of "Pure Imagination" from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." But her take on Mitchell's "Cactus Tree" (with Shawn Colvin) is lovely. "Pastures of Plenty" is a subtle, poignant look at Woody Guthrie's farmworker's ballad. And Webb's "Campo de Encino" is playful, though Collins' phrasing sounds so much like Mitchell, it's almost uncanny.

Joanna Horowitz, Special to The Seattle Times

Dünya and others, 'The Story of the City ... Constantinople: Istanbul' (self-released)

This imaginative musical history of a city, spearheaded by Boston-based nonprofit Dünya, takes the listener on an epic musical journey from early Christian-era Byzantine music to the 1960s arrival of Arab pop on the outskirts of Istanbul. Along the way, we hear the bagpipes and shawms of the Crusades; plaintive troubadour chansons; lively 14th- and 15th-century folk music; the lutes and harps of the Yörük (Turks); a dire call to the French to save Constantinople; a military band marching into newly named Istanbul; Ottoman court music; a crazy mix of Jewish, Greek and Armenian dance music; the trance-whirling of the Sufi dervishes; and Turkish light classical music called fasil. Less ethnomusicological miscellany than a tastefully arranged chamber sequence (a bit heavy on liturgical choral music), the two-disc set evokes a surprising unity — haunting, assertive, melancholic — in a city that has bridged East and West for two millennia.

Paul de Barros, Seattle Times music writer