A good exemple how the UK prog scene was formed at the turn of the decade. Musicians from different genres and background, with various education and aims, got together to create something different, often with inspiration from contemporary US acts. In this case with background and education in classical music, electronic, rock, blues and folk. It seems a lot of their early inspiration came from US composer Terry Riley. The band got its name from his "A Rainbow In Curved Air" and some of the cuts on this debute are admittedly induced by his work. Others reminds of Jefferson Airplane, but performed in slightly different style. That said - the combination skill, odd ideas and rather loose production makes it one of the best and certainly more interesting UK albums of the period. While some of the tracks sounds prepared and arranged, others comes through as studio improvisations. It goes from sheer beauty - "Propositions", "Screw" - to classically influenced psych - "Vivaldi". The intrepid blend of simple and complex - rock setting spiced with violin, primitive synths, psych guitars and the beautiful Sonja Kristina's dark natural voice - is a mind blower and makes me wanna stay there. The arrangements are more primitive than their later work. While some of the succeeding albums sounds trimmed and almost elegant, the outcome here is more right on with lots of presence. Favorite track - "It Happend Today". First US on WB (WS-1903). Earliest UK came as a picture disc, crippled by background noise and rather bad audio. This was the premiere UK black vinyl issue, from same first matrixes with same record number, sounding a lot better. It had green label as shown here, thick unflexible vinyl and fully laminated cover. (FÄV*)(ÄZC*)
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