Air Waves is an opportunity to examine two Curved Air eras – first, with eight live tracks recorded by their initial incarnation for the BBC in 1970-71, and then five more from a 1976 lineup that featured Stewart Copeland.
Ultimately, the showcases with the Police’s future drummer prove to be the most fascinating, as Curved Air expanded from its initial distinctly English prog influences into hard rock and R&B stylings. Sonja Kristina’s vocal presence had changed, too, from a more florid combination of folk and classical styles to this tough psychedelia that’s now associated with the likes of Grace Slick — in particular on “Woman on a One Night Stand.”
“Stark Naked,” the opening track from a 1976 date recorded for the BBC at the Paris Theatre in London, is a galloping wonder, episodic and much more visceral than anything that came before. (This remains the only recorded version of the track.) “Midnight Wire,” a searching ballad, then gives way to a rambunctious funk number called “Hot ‘n’ Bothered,” and Kristina’s primal howl soars into early Heart territory.
Check out the way Mick Jacques, who by then had replaced Francis Monkman on guitar, adds a rough-hewn crunch to Darryl Way’s fiddle freakout, too. Finally, there’s “The Fool,” which starts out sounding something like a hoedown, before morphing into a lumbering heavy-metal blooze — the bulk of credit for which, no doubt, goes to their new drummer, then just 22 years old.
Four decades on, Curved Air continues — with Kristina, original drummer Florian Pilkington Miksa, and others. A new album, in fact, is set for release in 2013. If this year’s Live Atmosphere is any indication, that project will likely sound more like the earliest cuts here — since the 2012 concert document found this new lineup focusing so squarely on the pre-Copeland recordings.
“It Happened Today,” bolstered by these billowing outbursts from Way’s electric violin, sets that initial template on Air Waves — due November 27, 2013 via Cleopatra Records. Of course, the question remains: What exactly would you call this? Classical meets space rock? Even without Copeland, they are blissfully difficult to pin down.
Curved Air goes on to perform a combination of “Propositions” and “What Happens When You Blow Yourself Up,” and then “Vivaldi” during these 1970 radio sessions. Nearly a year later they return to the BBC for five more cuts recorded in January and March of 1971 — the best of which is undoubtedly the stomping, nearly unhinged “Stretch.” By this point, of course, Curved Air had signed with Warners, issued the debut Airconditioning, and gone on tour with Black Sabbath.
Other interesting early moments include an early sketch of “Young Mother,” which would eventually appear on Curved Air’s Second Album; and “Thinking on the Floor,” which was also never recorded in the studio.
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