Schnitzer Arthur

Blending the literate and expressive lyrical style of a classic singer/songwriter with music rooted in indie rock, Joseph Arthur is a well-respected songwriter and performer whose work has impressed critics as well as artists such as Peter Gabriel and Michael Stipe. Arthur's original goal was to become a hotshot bass player, but exposure to Bob Dylan and Kurt Cobain prompted him to take up songwriting, and in 1996, he self-released an EP that made its way to Peter Gabriel, who signed Arthur to his Real World label. 1997's challenging Big City Secrets and 2000's rootsy Come to Where I'm From impressed critics and discriminating listeners, and 2004's Our Shadows Will Remain found him digging even deeper into his confessional tales. With 2007's Let's Just Be, Arthur launched his own record label, Lonely Astronaut, giving him greater control over his music as he recorded idiosyncratic projects such as 2013's The Ballad of Boogie Christ and 2014's Lou (the latter a collection of Lou Reed covers).

Though a bit over the top, this album was still powerful and surprisingly melodic, and managed to be quite bluesy and soulful even as the band overhauled chestnuts by James Brown and Screamin' Jay Hawkins. "Spontaneous Apple Creation" is a willfully histrionic, atonal song that gives Captain Beefheart a run for his money. Though this one-shot was not (and perhaps could not ever be) repeated, it remains an exhilaratingly reckless slice of psychedelia.

Arthur Brown was one of the prime movers behind the Progressive underground in late 1960s England, famous for his outlandish stage act which included psychedelic robes and a helmet of fire!
Digitally remastered two-fer containing a pair of albums from the British Rock icon. "Requiem" is an end-of-the-world concept album that comes on with a bang, not a whimper, and may well be the best thing that Arthur Brown has ever done! It's got all of the sonic excess you'd expect from the man who gave US 'Fire', but Brown's ornate Art-Rock tendencies are invariably backed up with enough visceral punch to make them marvelously affecting, not merely affected, while producer Earl Mankey handles the electronics well enough to maintain an unusually high level of interest and detail…

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to release the classic lost album by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Strangelands. Recorded in the Autumn of 1969, the sessions were an attempt to resurrect the Crazy World by Arthur Brown and featured some classic material. Divided into four sub-headings, (The Country, The City, The Cosmos and The Afterlife), Strangelands was certainly ahead of its time but failed to gain a full release for nearly two decades. In hindsight, the material can be seen as the blueprint for Arthur s next project, the innovative Kingdom Come.
This Esoteric Recordings reissue also adds the legendary Replicas sessions by Rustic Hinge. Featuring Crazy World drummer Drachan Theaker and guitarist Andy Rickell, the project was originally intended to feature Arthur Brown as vocalist and also featured the legendary High Tide guesting on one track…

Among musicians, Arthur Alexander was always considered one of the greatest R&B songwriters. Both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones covered his songs, "Anna (Go to Him)" and "You Better Move On," respectively, early in their careers. But they weren't the only ones – throughout the years, his work was rich source material for many blues, soul, rock, and country artists. He may have earned the recognition of his peers, but he remained relatively unknown to the general public, right up to his death in 1993. In order to raise his profile, Razor & Tie released Adios Amigo: A Tribute to Arthur Alexander in 1994, assembling a stellar and diverse lineup to record new versions of his songs. The diversity and the fresh arrangements illustrates the depth of Alexander's songs and how well they lent themselves to new readings. Like any tribute album, Adios Amigo is uneven, with a few tracks falling flat, but the best moments – Elvis Costello's "Sally Sue Brown," Robert Plant's "If It's Really Got to Be This Way," Chuck Jackson's "You Better Move On," Frank Black's "Old John Amos," John Prine's "Lonely Just Like Me," Gary U.S. Bonds' "Genie in the Jug," Graham Parker's "Every Day I Have to Cry" and Nick Lowe's "In the Middle of It All" – are affectionate salutes to a departed master, and they're damn enjoyable in their own right as well.

Arthur Grumiaux and Walter Klien offer playing with spring in its step and a lyrical yet unsentimental warmth in the slow movements, though that of K296 might with advantage have lingered a little more. These are stylish artists who are also eloquent in the unusually wistful Andante con moto of K380 … Perhaps a touchstone for Grumiaux's qualities is the great slow movement of K454, where he is sensitive to the extraordinary harmonic design and yet over-reliant on the same tricks of tone-colour to project it.

Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the United States of America. Fiedler was sometimes criticized for over-popularizing music, particularly when adapting popular songs or edited portions of the classical repertoire, but he kept performances informal and sometimes self-mocking to attract a bigger audience.