See the marionettes makin' puppet plans/See, he's pulling the strings, see the puppet dance

Friday 12 September - When I get a new CD I like to load it up onto my Zen Stone Plus so that I can listen to it on the move. The Zen software uses Gracenote to get album and track metadata for the MP3 files. Imagine my delight when I discovered that my two latest acquisitions are so obscure that Gracenote can’t identify them. Result! So what were they then? Well, bit of a cheat as they are both from the same band Curved Air.

Who? Curved Air were a pioneering British prog- rock group formed in 1969 from the remnants of a band called Sisyphus (Monkman and Pilkington-Miksa). The founding musicians came from quite different artistic backgrounds, classic, folk, and electronic sound, which resulted in a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and fusion with classical elements. They were one of the first rock bands to feature a violin. The band released seven albums in as many years before calling it a day. They still kept bubbling under though, and an album of studio work from 1973 surfaced in 1990 and the group performed together briefly releasing a live album of this concert, Alive 1990, which was released in 2000. A Live At The BBC was released in 1995. They have recently reformed and are touring with a sort of greatest hits with, Reborn. Since leaving the band Monkman, a member of Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, has played with John Williams in a group called Sky. The reformed band has three of the original line up; Sonja Kristina Linwood, Darryl Way, and Florian Pilkington-Miksa. Whilst the core of the band remained intact, they did have a number of notable musicians pass through their line-up; Ian Eyre (bass), Mike Wedgwood (bass, later in Caravan), Eddie Jobson (keyboards and violin, later in Roxy Music, Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull and UK), John G. Perry (bass, ex-Caravan), Stewart Copeland (drums, later of The Police), and Tony Reeves (bass, ex-Greenslade, Colosseum, John Mayall). All of which brings me to my latest CDs which are the first two albums by the band.

Their debut album, Airconditioning, was released in November 1970 and reached number 8 in the UK albums chart in December 1970. It’s notable for a rock interpretation of a Vivaldi piece by Darryl Way (think of Darryl as a fore-runner of Nigel Kennedy) and the fact that it was also released as the first vinyl picture disc in a limited edition of 20,000. Sadly the sound quality of the picture disc was somewhat impaired by the early technology. I understand that the CD version hasn’t been re-mastered and to be honest the first track has some vocal wobbles that I can’t believe are down to Sonja.

The line-up for this album consisted of; Sonja Kristina Linwood (vocals), Darryl Way (violin), Florian Pilkington-Miksa (drums), Andy Christie (guitar), and Chris Harris (bass). For me the stand out tracks on this album are the lengthier pieces; It Happened Today with Sonja’s double-tracked vocals, Stretch a sort of modern/classical piece with disjointed time signatures and heavy use of violin, Screw sounding like early Genesis reminds me somewhat of the Beatle’s Eleanor Rigby, the chugging beat of Blind Man, and Hide and Seek. Vivaldi is of course excellent, but a bit of an anachronism within the context of the rest of the album. The most commercial tracks were released as a single, It Happened Today / Vivaldi / What Happens When You Blow Yourself Up, and was released in 1971.

In my opinion this was Curved Air not really knowing where they were going, just sitting down and making music that they liked. There is no development. But that said, still a fine album.

Their second album is called Second Album. It reached number 11 in the UK Charts on 9 October 1971, and the single Back Street Luv / Everdance became a UK number 4 chart hit on 7 August 1971. The line-up for this album consisted of: Ian Eyre (bass), Sonja Kristina (vocals), Francis Monkman (guitars, keyboards, VCS3 synthesizer), Florian Pilkington-Miksa (drums), and Darryl Way (violin, piano, vocals)

With the introduction of a VCS3 synthesizer this album seems much more focussed, yet also has a greater variety of styles. To me it’s a much stronger offering, more personal and mature than their first. The album opener is Young Mother with its echoes of Pink Floyd’s On The Run or early Genesis, particularly in the jazz-styled synth work. This is followed by the outstanding single Back Street Luv, really the only piece of their work that I actually recognised before buying these albums. Dark and brooding verses are interspersed with boppy choruses. Jumbo is almost like a song from the musicals with Sonja singing in the style of Elaine Paige. Not literally, but that kind of singing where each note of the tune matches a word in the lyric. It’s a beautiful ballad reminiscent of Renaissance (the band not the era). Track 4 is You Know, great guitar work but possibly the weakest track on the album. The final track on side one is Puppets, a beautiful yet menacing tune with a clockwork beat.

The side two (like a CD has sides!) only has three tracks and opens with Everdance which featured on the B-side of their second single. A driving violin led tune played in a ‘gypsy’ style. This is followed by another anachronistic offering, the rather odd Bright Summer’s Day. Musically it sounds a bit like Cockney Rebel and would actually have fitted better on the first album. The last track, at almost thirteen minutes long, is the epic Piece Of Mind. This starts with tribal drumming, synth-brass, violin and a heavy piano. The tempo changes and we are drawn up into a crescendo, then quiet. There is a beautiful piano and strings section as we set off again getting more and more frantic, then quiet. Some subdued drumming and piano work underpins Sonja reading a passage from TS Eliot’s The Wasteland. The music starts again and we’re off to Arabia for a bit in the style of Emerson Lake and Palmer before reverting back to the sea-like drumming and piano which gradually fades into the distance.

I paid less than a tenner for these two albums, definitely a bargain. For punters wanting a greatest hits I guess that their latest, Reborn is probably the best bet. It does lack Piece Of Mind but then all their compilations do, which is a shame.