Curved Air

The only Curved Air song I've known for ages has been the incredibly girly but nice Backstreet Luv. Thats the one all my friends like. But now that I've seen a video of Vivaldi from a 1975 jam, I think I'm in love....the things mr Way does with that violin!! (With the music- not the talented but curly-headed musician) If theres any good C.A fan out there then please tell me a good place to start with them. I've heard two pieces but I want more..MORE I say!  I'm particularly interested in the composition of Vivaldi: it sounds like Way is half playing around with whatever comes to his head, and half playing Vivaldi music. My favourite bit is when he bangs it around then distorts it to Ringwraith-squeal

I love CURVED AIR, it's one of my favourite prog band.

I think their best album is "Second Album", released in 1971. All the tracks in this album are great, but the best song is the 12-minute "Piece Of Mind", one of the most innovative song of the entire progressive.

Their debut album "Air Conditioning" (1970), famous for being the history's first LP-sized "picture disc", is a very good album with Darryl Way's violin and Sonja Kristina's splendid voice in evidence. There are great songs such as "Vivaldi", "It happened Today", "Proposition", "Screw", "Situations" and "Rob One".

"Phantasmagoria", released in 1972 is their third album and the last one with the original line-up, considered by many people as their best. Yes, it is really good with very nice songs. "Marie Antoniette" and "Melinda" are two stunning ballads in the classic and typical CURVED AIR style. "Cheetah" is an instrumental piece for violin and "Ultra Vivaldi" is a remake of the original song only for VCS-3 synthesizer. The track "Over And Above" reminds me a lot of "Octopus" - styled GENTLE GIANT, featured vibes and xylophone by Frank Ricotti.

"Air Cut" is the fourth work released in 1973. It is the album that passes the reformation of the group. Original members Darryl Way, Francis Monkman and Florian Pilkington-Miksa left the band. Eddie Jobson (keyboards, violin), Kirby Gregory (guitars, vocals) Jim Russel (drums) and bassist Mike Wedgwood joined the group. Of particular merit here is the young (17) multi-talented Eddie Jobson. "Purple Speed Queen" is a great opener, with a stunning synth solo that reminds me to Rick Wakeman, "Elfin Boy" is more melodic with the beautiful voice of the singer in evidence. The best song of this album is the 10-minute "Metamorphosis" which reminds me to RENAISSANCE. It's one of the best song of their career.

"Midnight Wire", released in 1975 showed a step backward in comparison with their earlier works. Sonja Kristina's housband Stewart Copeland is the new drummer and Mick Jacques is the new guitarist. Darryl Way rejoined the band but this album has a few good songs. My favourite is the titled-track.

"Airborne" (1976), with Tony Reeves from COLOSSEUM, is the last CURVED AIR's album, and it's their les progressive album.

"Lovechild", released in 1990, consists in previously unreleased material recorded in between 1972 and 1973. It's good, similar to "Air Cut", but not at the same level.

Found it!!!

It was reprinted by Rock Fever (RFM007) at the price of 15$, look at this site:

www.freakemporium.com

Or... www.cdbox.it

Starette wrote: Is it just me or do many guys called Andrew tend to have fav-bands with females as the lead vocals? Perhaps you fans could help me on one particular thing then. I saw a video clip of Curved Air playing Vivaldi but does anyone know when and where it was filmed? for the record- we see random shots of fish in aquariums super-imposed on the band while the synth takes us 'underwater' right after Sonja sings. And yes- she is...EXTREMELY gorgeous.

It originally appeared on The Beat Club which was a German rock programme.It is available on a DVD (which I have) but all you get is the 30 minutes of the performance (live but in a studio) plus a 7 minute interview with Darryl Way.I have no idea where it was actually recorded although Germany might be a fair guess!

The Rock wrote: And they came back in 1990.A live album exist.

I saw them play in London with the original line up on that tour - an excellent gig and Sonja Kristina sang beautifully and still looked stunning.

Second Album is my favourite, although there was plenty of good material on the first album and Phantasmogoria as well.