PHANTASMAGORIA

I had loved this album for years, as a little masterpiece of a second line progressive rock production, but last listenings revealed to me I overrated it in my opinion. As a general sensation I think sound should have been better engeneered (not as bad as Air Conditioning, but not perfectly balanced to surface band's "shining"). In a specifical approach this album presents a beautiful beginning with "Marie Antoinette" (well sung by Sonja Kristina and played on violin and mellotron by Darryl Way) with sound's and rhthm's changes, nice "Melinda" (typical "second track" in between "strong pieces" of the album) which introduce to " Not quite the same" my favourite song in Phantasmagoria: a little gem where every instrumental and vocal passages have a precise meaning, sound is however very brilliant due to violin and trumpets, bass is nimble and all the song has a fairy atmosphere. And then, what's happened?The magic spell is broken and Curved Air get in to a more experimental attempt of music which doesn't result quite well in their capabilities: instrumental pieces in which Sonja recites in a distort voice look like a forced experiment (maybe they influenced "Linguistic Leprosy by Lady's June, some years later) so that " Cheetah", " Ultra Vivaldi" and "Whose shoulders are yoy looking over anyway" don't add anything to the album and create a middle section ("Phantasmagoria" track is nothing more than a filling) which looses fresh spirit of starting. We fortunately arrive to "Over and above" which realize a wonderful balance between sincere inspiration and musical complexity: a real orchestra is present with trumpets and trombones, and Ricotti's xylophone is quite pleasent, Curved Air play in Canterbury style and save their personal own. "Once a ghost always a ghost" close the album leaving the sensation. "good, but could have been better!"