Curved Air
Air Conditioning

For me, it's definitely a gentil-Prog period.

On the pages of your Last.fm profile, as many users may have already noticed, suggestions appear for artists most similar to what you're listening to… among many strange names, like Gryphon, Triumvirat, and Atomic Rooster, I came across Curved Air; or rather, to be honest, they were right at the top of the list. The reason is quickly explained: along with It’s a Beautiful Day and the more famous East Of Eden (which I already knew and highly recommend), Curved Air were among the prominent promoters of violin in rock music. Another point of connection that allowed me to discover them is related to the vocalist… or rather, THE VOCALIST, since, just like with the Renaissance, here we have a female voice, specifically, the beautiful Sonja Kristina, already a veteran of the music world at that time, thanks to her regular presence as a vocalist in the musical Hair.

Speaking of the group from a strictly musical perspective, they were formed in 1969 when they changed their name from Sisyphus to Curved Air, in tribute to an album by Terry Riley, called A Rainbow In Curved Air. Their musical “credo” is well defined by their debut album: Air Conditioning (1970, Island Studios) is a mix of Hard Rock elements, accompanied by the violin of Darryl Way, who also serves as the second vocalist exclusively on this LP, alongside a decent dose of psychedelia, which will strengthen in the subsequent Second Album, but especially in Phantasmagoria.

Everything might suggest that Curved Air are precursors of the Renaissance, both for using instruments employed in classical music and for the female voice; although there are some classical references (especially a tribute to Vivaldi, which we'll analyze later), the two bands embrace different musical projects: Renaissance produced music with purely Renaissance influences, using modern instruments, with a significant contribution from the piano and Haslam's voice; Curved Air, on the other hand, took various genres, including Folk, Hard Rock, and Prog, took a violin, and created a unique sound, even though this album still shows some evident clichés of the era; they will partially break free from them with Phantasmagoria, but paradoxically, their best album is precisely the debut.

In fact, Air Conditioning can easily summarize the composition methods that will accompany Curved Air between the '70 and '73 periods; two songs are particularly noteworthy: It Happened Today stands out with martial hard rock, an easy chorus, with Kristina's voice first gentle, then shrill, promptly pursued by Andy Christie's dark guitar, but the finale delivers a surprising conclusion with a relaxing violin solo by Way, decisively breaking the intense pace of the song, dissolving the tension with rose water. Vivaldi, on the other hand, is the manifesto of everything Curved Air has to offer: the name says it all, the homage to the classical composer is evident; the beginning is purely classical, with almost a total lack of any rock traces until mid-song (only faint drum and guitar accompaniment), then Way's violin and Christie's guitar decide it's time to race speedily, creating a sound that almost recalls the visions of Cale's viola from the Velvet Underground, returning then to the incredible finale, a growing whirlwind of emotions where Vivaldi reincarnates, only for a moment, in Way's superfast violin, Christie's ever-darkening guitar, and Florian Plikington-Miksa's fast and relentless drums. Vivaldi is certainly the highest point ever reached by Curved Air in terms of composition and emotion and will become their signature song.

The rest of the tracks range from “stringed” Hard Rock à la It Happened Today, with the hard and dark Hide And Seek (one of the LP's best tracks), to the hard blues of Stretch, up to the almost crimsoniana Screw, with Way seemingly parodying Fripp's Mellotron. The set concludes with the sweet Blind Man and Rob One, the brief and rocking Propositions, the experimental, and perhaps the only truly progressive song on the album, due to its continuous rhythm changes, Situations, which will almost pave the way for future vibraphone experiments heard in Phantasmagoria, and a fitting conclusion with a reprise, this time faster, of the Vivaldi theme (Vivaldi With Cannons).

Underestimated and little known, Curved Air represent a valid prog formation with folk and classical roots: the right compromise between the sacredness of the violin and the profanity of the electric guitar, between catchiness and grandeur, between experimentation and well-tested clichés; their debut album is certainly the most intense and important, they will manage to repeat themselves only with Phantasmagoria and, only partially, with Second Album, also due to the lineup change seen in the rare album Air Cut.

Vivaldially recommended.