AIRCONDITIONING

Curved Air's first album showcases a sound achieved by combining early prog bombast (complete with classical covers in the form of two Vivaldi reworkings) with classic 60s pop - most evident in the chanteuse style that lead singer Sonja Kristina sings in. Not as full-on experimental as many contemporaries, but still an interesting experiment with a pleasant sound - or at least, it would be if the sound quality on many editions of the album wasn't terrible - murky, fuzzy, and altogether poor.

Apparently this was due to the marketing gimmick of making this album one of the very first picture disc LPs - only picture disc technology being in its infancy, the sound quality was necessarily scaled down. Still, if you can get through the sound quality there's some good material on here - but the band would put out albums with a far better sound later in their career. The recent remaster from Esoteric (also available in a boxed set with the rest of their first four albums) is a notable improvement over most CD issues.