This album features famous and prominent Indian virtuosos like Pt Ronu Majumdar, Deepak Pandit, Pt Vishwa Prakash plus the superb female Indian vocalist, Deepa Nair, known for her singing on George Harrison and Pt Ravi Shankar's "Chants of India" album. Craig Pruess produces, composes, plays and arranges throughout, weaving his substantial film-score skills into an attractive soundscape of Western acoustic and electric instruments that blends perfectly with the resonance and sonorities of Indian instruments such as: bansuri (Indian bamboo flute), sitar, sarod, tablas/dholaks, santoor, Indian style violin, tambura, swaramandala, shenai, Indian style wordless vocalising and sarangi. Craig Pruess is known all over the Indian sub-continent for his ground-breaking "Sacred Chants of..." series of CDs (Saced Chants of Shiva, Sacred Chants of Buddha, the 108 Sacfed Names of the Mother Divine, Sacred Chants of Shakti, Sacred Chants of Rama, Sacred Chants of the Sikhs — successful in the form of millions of sales) and this is a refreshing and romantic (if at times intricate) change from this more spacious style of Sanskrit/spiritual chants. He is able to flex his arranging skills in a seamless and rich blend of Western and Indian music idioms. The artistry and virtuoso elements of the Indian performers are breath-taking at times, yet they are in service to these colourful and romantic compositions. There are seven moods depicted, which correspond to the different stages of love-making: patience, joy, attraction, romance, passion, surrender and happiness. The blend of beautifully recorded grand piano and the fretless Indian instrument, Sarod, and the well-known sound of the sitar is quite striking, and there is a classy rhythmic element in most tracks with a rich spaciness in three of the selections. The Indian flute playing is of a high international standard (Pt Ronu Majumdar tours with Trilok Burtu and Larry Coryell). Craig Pruess has composed the music for two internationally successful feature films, "Bend it Like Bekcham" and "Bride & Prejudice" (both number one box office hits in the UK), and received a British Academy Award nomination for African fusion music in a prime time BBC-TV series in 2010. He is a multi-instrumentalist, orchestral conductor, arranger, sound engineer, orchestrator and student of Indian classical music for 34 years. Although American by birth and education, he has settled in the UK since 1973, when he arrived as a synthesizer programmer and session musician (keyboards and trumpet) in the London music scene, going on to arrange and produce gold records for some of the UK's top artists. Craig's passion is the deep resonance of Indian music, and capturing it with the best recording techniques. Indian instruments, in the hands of masters, have a rich array of sound harmonics, unique in the acoustic world. The ancient knowledge of Indian "ragas" (or melodies coupled to a time of day) has a great healing and integrating effect on the body and represents and deep science of sound and rhythm, long associated with Ayur-Veda. Craig feels that this science of sound can be applied beyind Indian classical music and is able (with the right cross-over knowledge) to permeate and enrich many forms of music and the various Indo-fusion styles. To this end, Craig has been active in many aspects of the UK music industry and the film world. He was Indian music consultant for Danny Elfman's film score for "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" (Johnny Depp), Madonna's "The Next Best Thing" and Jimi Mistry's "The Guru". He has conducted his own patented Indian orchestral string arrangements for such high profile UK bands as Massive Attack and Def Leppard. He is a long time practicioner of yoga and meditation, and uses these disciplines as an aid to achieve high standards of recorded sound and production. The ancient tradition of Indian classical "ragas" comes from the same Vedic source as yoga, meditation and ayurveda (natural science of healing and herbs). This particular album of his will appeal to lovers of Buddha Bar, Shakti, Herbie Hancock, Pt Ravi Shankar, Alice Coltrane, Oregon, Pat Metheny, Trilok Gurutu, Al Gromer Khan and Mark Isham. There are also nods to Dave Brubeck, John McLaughlin, Miles Davis and Weather Report. It is rich and sophisticated. -- Simon Davies, UK, September 2014 The melodies and arrangements are strong and imaginatively arranged, and the perfomances are inspired.