Terry Riley
A Rainbow in Curved Air

THE REVIEW

Among the founders, among the inventors, among the pioneers, among the fathers of minimalism, there is without a shadow of a doubt Terry Riley. A leading figure in the universe of electronic avant-garde of the '60s, he influenced loads of groups with his exasperated and visionary experimentalism. A sort of guru revered and admired by many: the Who wanted to pay tribute to him by dedicating “Baba O’Riley” to him; the Soft Machine of Robert Wyatt and Pink Floyd, as well as the early exponents of krautrock (Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream at the forefront) likely listened to and absorbed the lessons of good Riley; John Cale was determined to collaborate with him in the beautiful "Church of Antrax," and there are numerous admirers of the now seventy-one-year-old composer today. Terry Riley can be considered one of the most innovative and revolutionary composers of the post-war period, alongside people of the caliber of John Cage, his main source of inspiration, or La Monte Young, his university companion (La Monte Young, John Cale, Dream Syndicate… it all makes sense).

The album in question, the first in his immense and multifaceted career, dated 1967, consists of "only" 2 tracks: the first, also the title track of the album, is “A Rainbow In A Curved Air”, where synthesizer and organ create a long and intense psychedelic suite; a modular, circular, and hypnotic ride, where the progress of the synth recalls episodes from Floyd's “The Dark Side of The Moon.” The second track is “Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band”, another crazy and hallucinatory suite, featuring, besides the faithful synth (which Riley often built himself), also the sax, which the Californian composer had studied during those years, perhaps driven by his immense admiration for John Coltrane.
The echo of the latter, more acid and experimental Coltrane and a passion for oriental mysticism, unsurprisingly resonates throughout the second part of “Poppy Nogood”. The wildest, most instinctive, and primordial improvisation on electronic keyboards, organ, and sax, supported by the circular repetition of simple melodic rhythmic cells, are the central compositional apparatus of what remains one of the most influential albums in avant-garde music and beyond; a crossroads for the era of avant-garde electronic experimentalism, which would kick off right at the end of the '60s and the beginning of the '70s, between England and Germany.