THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN: TANTRIC LOVER

I discovered this album while listening to a radio station I created using Arthur Brown as the starting point on Pandora. This is one of his more recent recordings, which I had never heard before. "The Bridge", "Circle Dance", "Swimfish" and "All The Bells" were the songs that appeared to me on Pandora and drew me in to buy the CD. I have the 2009 version which is the same as the 2nd edition from 2002. The earlier 2000 version contains more songs. But I don't know why they were omitted on the later ones. The music is mostly acoustic with a relaxed mellow feel, but has power from Arthur's wide range expressive singing. "Paradise" has spoken word poetry, "Tantric Lover" is upbeat reggae flavored, "Gabriel" is crazy heavy rock, "Circle Dance" reminds me of something from Bob Dylan's "Street Legal" or "Slow Train Coming" albums. Some of the other songs are a little hard to describe. Arthur himself describes this album as being "Psychedelic World Music". While it isn't as weird or adventurous as his earlier Crazy World or Kingdom Come material, it is one of my favorites by him because it focuses on and brings out his wonderful voice. I highly recommend this album.

The band behind Arthur on this album consisted of Stan Adler on cello, double bass, Fender bass and backing vocals; Malcolm Mortimer on drum kit, darabooka, udu drum, and percussion; Rik Patten on 6 and 12 string acoustic guitar, 12 string bottleneck acoustic guitar, banjo, piano and Hammond organ; Ravi on cora, Hannah on backing vocals, Phill on didgeridoo, John Clayton on alto sax, Jim Mortimer on 6 string electric guitar and Arthur himself on 6 string acoustic guitar and Tibetan singing bowl.