Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126066 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2009-09-08
• Running time: 2699 seconds

Customer Reviews

The air is always curved if you choose to see it
Born from the British group Sisyphus in 1968, the core of Frances Monkman (Guitar), Florian Pilkington-Miksa (Drums) and Rob Martin (Bass) met up with another visionary, Darryl Way (Violin, Keyboards) to form Curved Air. Very shortly, they were joined by Acoustic Guitarist/Singer Sonja Kristina. A milestone in the Progressive/Folk Rock genre was surfacing from the psychedelic mold, as Curved Air made mega-leaps in song construction and complexity. An impressive first effort. Song by song description is not necessary. They are all cutting edge for 1970. Highly recommended. It is unfortunate that this band didn't get the recognition it deserved in the U.S. The same fate as Gentle Giant. Look for the 4th album, AIR CUT. You can find it on CD elsewhere on the internet. Personnel change brought Eddie Jobson (from Roxy Music) on Keyboards and Violin. The tune Metamorphosis is well worth a listen.

How's the sound quality?
Released in 1970, this is Curved Air's first album. It is 44 minutes long. The original album came as picture disc (the picture on the cover was actually printed on the record). It was supposedly the first rock picture disc in history. It was also the first release by Warner Brothers of a British rock act.

There are two versions of this CD. I have the Warner Brother's version and the sound quality is fair. It is flat and muted. I was debating to give this a 4 or a 5 star rating but settled on 4 stars because fo the sound quality. This version is from Collector's Choice Music. I don't know if the sound quality is any better. I remember not being impressed with other CCM releases.

Curved Air was one of those groups that added "art rock" to "progressive rock", like Yes, the Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. There were many progressive rock bands that did not have that art rock sound, like Caravan and Camel.

This might be Curved Air's best stuido album. It has a number of very good songs on it. None of the go bombastically overboard (like Marie Antoinetted on a later album).

Curved Air's sound and Sonja Kristina vocals could be harsh at times, but then the band could break into some wonderfully beautiful music. The first track, It Happened Today, is a prime example. It starts out with a hard driving, punchy vocal and ends up with a mellow violin solo. It sounds like Disneyland stole it for the theme music to the ride Soaring Over California.

Curved Air was a volatile group of some amazing musicians. There was never a steady bassist. Francis Monkman (keyboards and guitar), Darryl Way (violin) and Florian Pilkington-Miska (drums) left after the third album and would could back every once in awhile. Sonja Kristina was Sonja Linwood for the first two albums. Mike Wedgewood would play bass on a couple of ablums before moving on to Caravan. Eddie Jobson would join later before going on to Roxy Music, UK, Jethro Tull and Frank Zappa. And this was Stewart Copeland's first band before forming the Police.

Francis Monkman has a great album of instrumentals called Jam that were recorded during one of the later Curved Air reunion sessions.

Wow! What a surprise..
Going on vague recommendation of this 1970 piece (I was told that Curved Air was sorta Earth, Wind and Fire / Sons Of Champlin-like) this is not brassy at all...much closer to It's A Beautiful Day. Lots of violin, male/female vocals, and classical touches (but unmistakeably rock). Definitely avant-garde as promised. Somewhat on the dark side (a good thing). This one will seize your ears and not let go.