Curved Air

Curved Air arrive at their third album as one of the most established bands in British progressive rock. Their debut, “Air Conditioning” (1970), reached number 8 and stayed on the charts for several months, while the follow-up “Second Album” (1971) spawned a hit single in “Back Street Luv”, which climbed to number 4.

Unfortunately, success didn't bring stability within the band. For the second time in their short history, they find themselves with the bassist's slot vacant. They place an ad in “Melody Maker” and, after a series of auditions, settle on Mike Wedgwood, who managed to nail a particularly complex score on his first attempt. The newcomer thus joins the core lineup of Darryl Way (violin and keyboards), Francis Monkman (guitars and keyboards), Florian Pilkington-Miksa (drums) and Sonja Kristina (vocals).

The singer draws the audience's attention with her messianic stage presence, influenced by Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane), while the band's instrumental direction is shaped by Way and Monkman, locked in a constant rivalry that has led them, from the very start, to compose one side of the vinyl each – even if the arrangements are then worked out together and the two blend seamlessly in performance. Both, after all, have an academic background spanning classical music of centuries past and 20th-century avant-garde: this hasn't stopped them falling in love with rock, especially since bands like Keith Emerson's Nice or King Crimson – both cited as influences – tore down the barrier between the two worlds.

Seven of the tracks destined for the new album are recorded in March 1972 at Advision Studios in London, already used by some of progressive rock's giants (Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes chief among them). Production is once again handled by young sound engineer Colin Caldwell, as on the previous two albums, but the approach has shifted: the band has decided to strip away the hard rock element that had characterised part of their repertoire up to that point, aiming instead for a polished sound that forgoes the rough edges of distortion.

“Phantasmagoria” takes its name from a poem by Lewis Carroll, an author Monkman is particularly fond of, and whose world – at once enchanted and acid-tinged – does indeed seem to exert a strong pull over the atmospheres the band conjures up.

The record opens with sounds drawn from contemporary electric jazz: acoustic piano chords surrounded by shimmers of electric piano and a bed of Vcs3 synthesizer, treated so as to generate a drone somewhere between an organ and the reverberation of a bell. It's a setting far removed from those that made the Vcs3 iconic (think of the cosmic soundscapes of Tangerine Dream or Pink Floyd), revealing instead a distinctive approach to electronics. On one hand it evokes the Joe Zawinul of “In A Silent Way” and the more experimental side of Herbie Hancock at the dawn of the Seventies; on the other, it has the dry, spare quality of Terry Riley's compositions (indeed, the band's name is taken directly from the celebrated “A Rainbow In Curved Air”). The track is titled “Marie Antoinette” and tells the story of the French queen. The lyrics are signed by Sonja Kristina, under the pseudonym Linwood (her real surname, never used professionally, was Shaw).

Maria Antonietta, il tuo nome è leggenda in questa terra

Per il tuo piacere, un tesoro conferito al galantuomo

La gente è in armi, marcia nella città

Insorgono, cantando la rivoluzione: “Vive la Nation!”

Maria Antonietta, la tua ombra sta cadendo lungo la terra

Rabbia nata dalla fame, avvelena i cuori dei tuoi uomini fedeli

Fuoco nei loro occhi, ferro nelle loro mani

Insorgono, cantando la rivoluzione: “Vive la Nation!”

Gridando nella piazza, la plebaglia è impazzita

Sono sopra le balaustre, sfidando il fuoco dei cannoni

They're killing the nobleman

We are the people of France

We demand that the elegant blue bloods, the leeches who pick us to the bone

Be taught what it means to fatten up while we go unfed

We are the people of France, you must listen to us!

Already at the Bastille, all the prisoners run free

They're hammering at the door, Marie Antoinette

They've taken the guillotine, they're coming for the queen

Marie Antoinette, the king and the guards have fled

The contrast is striking, because while the sound on one hand shows the contemporary edge of electronics and jazz-rock (the rhythm section's groove is remarkable), on the other Sonja Kristina's vocals evoke far more distant eras, in the tradition of British folk and the tones of the likes of Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) and Jacquie McShee (Pentangle). The lyrics themselves, though set in the eighteenth century, call for revolution: it shouldn't be forgotten that the author was a committed hippy who took part in the countercultural movements of the late Sixties. In 1972 the defeat of the '68 movement was still a fresh wound.

"Melinda (More Or Less)" is the best-known track on the record and the first ever composed by Sonja Kristina, who up to that point had written only the lyrics. Less musically complex than the pieces created by her bandmates, the ballad nonetheless carries a strong evocative power, steeped to the core in the idioms of local folk, with Way on violin, Monkman on harpsichord and a little-known Annie Stewart on flute (there's no information available on this musician, and this appears to be her only ever credited appearance).

The lyrics, centred on the relationship with the world of dreams, come across as a cross between a traditional song and a Carroll-esque fable, echoing the themes of oneirism invoked by the album's title.

Fair lady falling laughing for the glory of the rainbow

Fair lady coming crying for the relief of the light of day

Melinda more or less, Melinda more or less in dreams

But if and when she wakes again, she knows it all starts over

Sleeping, waking, rising, falling, mute but calling to deafened friends

This is how it ends for Melinda, more or less in dreams

Fade away Melinda, fade away into fantasy

Tell them you won't be played like some instrument of fate

Fade away Melinda, into your fantasy

Tell them you're unable to wait for your dream of the end

Fair lady who comes screaming for the relief of daylight

“Not Quite The Same” returns to acrobatics, blending the Middle Ages (the opening fanfare) with jazz-rock, with Wegwood's bass mixed prominently up front. For the occasion the band is joined by a horn section (four trumpets and four trombones). Stylistic melange is central to “Cheetah” too, with Way's violin showing off his passion for classical music (buzzing reminiscent of Rimsky-Korsakov's “Flight of the Bumblebee”, folk-tinged shrieks that seem to come straight out of Saint-Saëns's “Danse macabre”) while the band throws itself into a frenetic jazz-rock, dominated by Pilkington-Miksa's drum rolls.

Closing out side one is an experiment of barely a minute and a half, revisiting one of the band's earliest creations. Their debut album had in fact featured an instrumental titled “Vivaldi”, dominated by violin. Its theme is now reprised in “Ultra-Vivaldi”: sequenced by Way and Monkman at the Electronic Music Studios using a Synthi 100 (designed just a year earlier and not yet commercially available), the music accelerates continuously and bounces from speaker to speaker, anticipating by a year the finale of “Karn Evil 9” by Emerson Lake & Palmer, albeit with a less robotic approach.

The title track is perhaps the album's poppiest moment, driven by piano and Hammond organ over a simple verse-chorus alternation, and it creates a jarring stylistic shift when it gives way to the thorny experimentation of “Whose Shoulder Are You Looking Over Anyway?”.

Sonja Kristina's voice recites a Carroll poem, but the words are unintelligible because the tape was processed with the Synthi 100 by Monkman, with the help of Robert Carvell, an Electronic Music Studios employee. The result is a stream of android chatter and drones, perhaps better suited to a work by contemporary composers like Alvin Lucier or Robert Ashley than to a rock record. That said, the result is commendable and, for 1972, remarkably forward-looking.

“Over And Above” features a six-piece horn section and English jazz veteran Frank Ricotti, who plays xylophone and vibraphone. The track's fragmentary structure, a sort of collage of songs and jams, along with the unusual sound of the idiophones, brings it somewhat close to Gentle Giant.

Closing the album is “Once A Ghost, Always A Ghost”, which follows the same timbral framework but returns to song form. Ricotti's vibraphone is present here too, with delightful Caribbean-flavored solos, probably influenced by the Latin jazz of maestro Cal Tjader.

Perhaps the finest example of British prog fronted by a female voice, matched only by the Renaissance's “Scheherazade And Other Stories”, “Phantasmagoria” hits shops in April '72 and by May 20th sits at number 20 on the British charts: a result below their previous albums, but still respectable. It would certainly allow the band to carry on, were their personal relationships not already worn thin. Monkman and Way continue their duel for control of the project, but by now they're unable to reach a compromise. Add to that the strain of nearly two years of non-stop touring, and the die is cast.

On August 11th the band headlines the Reading Festival, with Nazareth, Pretty Things and Genesis opening for them. For many, this would be the peak of a career, but for the classic lineup of Curved Air it's the finish line. At the end of 1972 both founders leave: Monkman later becomes a member of Phil Manzanera's 801 (Roxy Music) and of John Williams' Sky, while Way turns to session work for the likes of Jethro Tull, Gong and Marianne Faithfull.

Sonja Kristina then tries to carry the band forward on her own, but the new album, "Air Cut" (1973), turns out to be a commercial flop. At that point Wedgwood also leaves, joining Caravan. The singer, by now isolated, finds herself performing at London's Playboy Club just to get by, before reforming the band with a new lineup and marrying Stewart Copeland of Police. Her version of Curved Air carries on to this day, albeit for an audience of nostalgics.

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21/02/2021