AIRCONDITIONING

Curved Air, to be honest, was a band that I always viewed as "Daryl Way and Friends", in their first incarnation, and dismissed them as such. After 40 plus years, I've tried to put my long held feelings on a shelf and give the group another try, starting with their first album titled Airconditioning. Why the first, when it's known for it's poor sound quality and hit and miss song success? Because it's basically the formula or form that Curved Air would follow on their more successful follow up albums and plainly demonstrated the band's strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, not much of my previous view has changed. First off, classically trained electric violinist Daryl Way added much of the overt and convert classical vibe to the groups music, followed closely by keyboardist/guitarist Francis Monkman. Monkman also added futuristic psychedelia by means of a VCS3 synthesizer. Curved Air being one of the first bands to record with one. The rhythm section consisting of Florian Pilkington-Miksa on drums and Robert Martin on bass was more than adequate, if not distinctive. Which is all well and good.

Where Cured Air starts to fall apart in a big way is Sonja Kristina's lead vocals. Lacking the power and range of other female vocalists such as Renaissance's Annie Haslam or even San Francisco rocker Grace Slick, who she more closely resembles, Kristina simply lacked the skill and power to go head to head with either Way's stratospheric violin or Monkman's heavy lead guitar. The fact that an instrumental standout track such as Way's near famous neo-classically flavored "Vivaldi" only helped to conflate the issue on this album, and marginalized Kristina's vocals abilities even more.

Much of Curved Air early success was due to great promotion by both their management and record company, with the band given something in neighborhood of a $60, 000 advance prior to recording Airconditioning. Perhaps if the band had invested in a renowned record producer and the services of a top flight recording studio, Airconditioning would not have sounded like just so much hot air, forever dogged by poor mixing and mastering. Let's see if their second album, unimaginatively tilted Second Album, has the power to break the bleak foreboding of Airconditioning.