TRE

Arcimedes badkar was a swedish progg band which started 1972 and made its first record "Badrock för barn i alla åldrar" in the year 1975. The secord lp "Archimedes badkar II" came 1976 and this third and second last came 1977. The musicians on this record are Tommy Adolfsson, Jörgen Adolfsson, Christer Bjernelind, Per Tjernberg, Pysen Eriksson, Peter Ragnarsson, Bengt Berger(who has played with many proggbands like Arbete och fritid, Anita Livstrand, Fickteatern, Pärson sound, Sånger om kvinnor) , Sigge Krantz and Christer Bothén.

I have had this records for some years now but my last listening was a long tid ago. On this record they mixed a lot of styles. You can hear fragments of swedish folk musik but mostly they have taken inspiration from other cultures like India and Africa and the orient. The music on this record has very different qualities. Some tracks are pure good material, especially for those who like jazz and improvisation. "Tzivaeri" is the best track with true beauty, clear instruments and a pure melody. "Slum(Södergatan)" is melancolic and wonderful, the only composition here that feels swedish and authentic. "Bhajan" feels like India and contains also bright and intelligent material. We have two pieces which are trumpet and saxophone driven: "Badidoom" and "Suite: Pharoah ? El Legend ? Marrakech". These tracks have a nice feeling, very talanted blowers and give you harmony especially if you like this form of music, I'm not very sure of that. The worst tracks were "Wildlife", "Akombah" and "Thumb piano music" which I considered meaningsless.

As a conclusion I want to say that I think this is tricky music. I don't think it sounds genuine. I feels like they were confused about their identity and therefore searched in other cultures to find it. This is too much world music because it's hard to find THE Archimeds Badkar sound in it. They should have made more bits like "Slum" and they would have been more interesting. Now it feels like this was a one listening-time record.