Oriphiel

I have a confession to make; since my last entry, I've fallen for Curved Air. And I mean fallen hard. There's just something really interesting about their take on the Progressive sound, and how they seamlessly mixed Hard Rock/Early Metal with Folk and Classical overtones. While they produced some great studio tracks, their live performances are when the band really shined; they have an amazing energy to them, especially when vocalist Sonja Kristina starts doing her thing. Not only that, but their electric violinist Darryl Way is very skilled, and he often messes around with distortion and feedback during live performances to give his violin a super-fuzzy tone that would feel right at home even on a modern Metal album, or sampled in a Drone song. But even without the distortion, he's very good at capturing a clean and Classical sound as well. So, without further ado, let's take a look at Curved Air and their debut album!

Airconditioning



Curved Air was originally formed due to a simple act of chance. Francis Monkman, an aspiring musician from the University of London's prestigious Royal Academy of Music, was shopping in a musical equipment outlet when he heard someone playing an electric violin. He investigated the intriguing sound, and ran into violinist Darryl Way. After their introductions, the two became fast friends, and decided to start a band together. They, along with classical pianist Nick Simon, formed the band Sisyphus, and were joined by musicians Florian Pilkington-Miksa and Rob Martin. While they quickly set about writing many Prog Rock songs, which would end up on Curved Air's debut, Sisyphus became known mostly for producing solid Classical and instrumental music, and they landed a gig providing the music for a play that was being performed. In the audience was Mark Hanau, who was impressed with Sisyphus, and he offered to become their manager. However, Sisyphus weren't the only musicians that Mark Hanau had taken a liking to; he also thought that vocalist Sonja Kristina, who he had heard performing music for a play as well, was a promising talent. He introduced Sonja to Sisyphus, and they formed the band that would come to be known as "Curved Air" (after the renowned song "A Rainbow in Curved Air"), after the departure of Nick Simon (who left after having several disagreements with Darryl over the band's direction).

1969 and 1970 were the formative years of the band, when they focused on practicing and playing live shows. Eventually, they managed to build up a good reputation and a decent following, particularly after they landed a tour supporting other Progressive/Early Metal bands like Black Sabbath. In 1970, they released their debut, "Airconditioning", which was received well among fans of Progressive Rock. After that, they managed to get mainstream attention after their single "Back Street Luv" became a top ten hit in the UK, and their second album (aptly titled "Second Album") climbed fairly high in the charts as well. From this point on, there was always a place in the public's heart for Curved Air, as their intriguing albums, catchy singles, and wild live performances managed to entrance a wide variety of fans. Even after multiple break-ups, reunions, and side project off-shoot bands, they still have a dedicated fanbase (particularly in the UK), and as of now are still touring (although the only original members in the current line-up are Sonja and Florian, after Darryl left in 2010). Now, let's get to the music!


Curved Air!

1. "It Happened Today" - Kicking off the album is a fantastic Hard Rock number with smooth yet strong vocals and a strong backbeat as provided by the drums, piano, and bass. The guitar work has a sharp Proggy feeling to it, and the occasional violin riffs are a nice touch (especially in the second half of the song, when the violin comes to the forefront for a nice break). I like this version of the song, and the various live versions are all just as good as they each add something new to the mix.

2. "Stretch" - Following a groovy Blues style riff played on the electric violin and the guitar, and the two instruments work surprisingly well together. It's got a steady beat to it, and it's a bit heavier than the opening track. The smooth vocals remain, with Sonja and one of her male bandmates singing together throughout the song. This track has a certain amount of emphasis on the main riff, with the violin laying down the core while the guitar provides various flourishes, but there are two great solos where the two instruments really get a chance to shine.

3. "Screw" - Mixing things up a bit, this song has more of a Folk feeling to it than the last few tracks (especially with the vocals). Still, it has a fair amount of the Progressive sound to it with the electric organs flaring up here and there, and the guitar occasionally gets really fuzzy and heavy for some nice Psychedelic moments! As always, the violin work adds a nice Classical feeling to the atmosphere.



4. "Blind Man" - This track goes for a sort of Baroque Pop sound, having a light tone and soft vocals. At times, it's a bit reminiscent of the Folksy and slightly Psychedelic artists of the 1960s, like Donovan and The Byrds, and it's a good change of pace.

5. "Vivaldi" - The violin work here is absolutely fantastic, going from clean and Classical to heavily distorted and downright metallic over the course of the song, and the rest of the band provides a solid Rock backdrop that mixes well with it while also allowing it to stand out. Over seven minutes in length, this is one of the longer songs of the album, but I think it's justified; the song just has a way of grabbing your attention, and I think most people will find themselves listening to the very end. Roughly four minutes in, Darryl starts playing around with feedback and distortion, giving his violin and the song in general a weird and almost Drone-like sound. At about five and a half minutes in, he replicates the sound of a car zooming down a highway, which is just awesome! But my favorite part is from six minutes and twenty seconds onward, when the band re-plays the opening section of the song with extra speed and energy. Whether it's the studio version or one of the more heavy, experimental and improvised live performances, I highly recommend that you seek out one of the cuts of this song!

6. "Hide and Seek" - Returning to the Heavy Prog sound with a solid backbeat and fuzzy guitar work, this song opens with the piano taking the forefront. However, the song quickly shifts into a heavy and groovy guitar solo, before the tone of the song suddenly changes (in true Prog fashion) and Sonja jumps into the fray with strong and haunting vocals. This is a great song that kind of has a loose and "jamming" feeling to it, as the band goes through different tones and riffs throughout.

7. "Propositions" - This track kicks off with a kind of Punk feeling to it, with fast and hard drumming mixed with a dirty and simple guitar riff. The vocals are as smooth as ever, but I think it would have sounded better if Sonja sang this one without the male backing vocalist. Anyway, the song shifts into some Psychedelic-tinged guitar jamming, before returning to the original riff and finishing things off in this relatively short song. It's a fun track, but I really prefer the harder-edged live version, as it leans more heavily towards an intriguing Hard Rock/Early Metal sound, and Sonja's vocals are much more rough and raw (with a fantastic scream at the end of the chorus).



8. "Rob One" - The piano and violin work that open up this track are excellent, and this would basically be a Classical song through and through if it wasn't for the loud drumming and bass work in the background! From the start to the finish, this is a beautiful song.

9. "Situations" - Another of the album's longer tracks, this one begins as a haunting and subtle song, kept very subdued at first (save for the drum breaks when the song speeds up a bit, and the vocals have a little more power to them). The song shifts tones and becomes faster and less dark as it goes on, culminating in a fantastic Psychedelic guitar solo! The vocals are an excellent match for the song, fitting the general feeling very well. Every now and then, there are some fun electronic songs in the background (which I think are either made using the electric violin, or a synthesizer). It's solid and a bit Avant Garde, but really the whole album is kind of in a similar vein!

10. "Vivaldi With Cannons" - The shortest song of the album, we're played out with a return to the main section of "Vivaldi" (and, just as promised, there are cannons in the background). The violin has a good amount of distortion to it, and there are some synthesizer effects here and there.



So, whaddya think? Progressive bands definitely had the right idea when they combined Rock with elements of other genres, as it creates a very fun and intriguing sound, and Curved Air were one of the masters of mixing Progressive Rock with Classical music. Like I said earlier, I've really taken a liking to them, and this album is a great example of the range that they had (being rough yet also mellow, as well as classy and clean yet also occasionally stripped down and raw). Not only that, but Curved Air had a pretty good amount of influence on their peers, and many bands that came after them borrowed a bit of their thunder (I mean, watch a video of them playing live back in the day, and then listen to Heart for awhile. The Wilson sisters were obviously fans of Sonja's look and sound). I recommend this album very highly, especially if you're a fan of the Progressive Rock sound, and even if you aren't, I still recommend giving this album a shot sometime!



Information about the band: Curved Air, http://www.progarchives.com/artist.a...s_monkman.html, Curved Air - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://www.discogs.com/artist/356873-Curved-Air

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Oriphiel

I've been in the mood to write lately, so I thought it would be cool if I wrote a bunch of horror stories for you guys, each one inspired by a different member, and then posted the stories in the days leading up to Halloween. But in the end I doubted that anyone would really give all that much of a shit about them, so I just kinda scrapped the idea. Before I did, though, I wrote a few, and the one below is my favorite of the sordid bunch. So here, have a horror story, and have fun trying to guess which member it was inspired by (there's one line in particular that I think really gives it away):


He shot her twice in the chest. Stumbling backwards, she fell against the wall, her weeping back adding to the splatter of blood behind her as she slid down to the floor. Her face contorted in pain, she opened her mouth as if to scream, yet made no sound. Looking up at the man, she tried to stand. He shot her once more, and she fell back to the floor. Looking into her eyes, the man said “It’s done.”

The woman let out a bloody gasp that sounded somewhat like a laugh, and somewhat like a cough. “It’s never done,” she replied in a weak voice, through a mouthful of blood.

The man slid his gun into the holster under his left armpit. “I know all about you. I know what you are. And I came prepared.”

As he looked into the woman’s eyes, in his mind the man saw the death gaze of his brother. In life, he had been a proud man, a warrior, passionate and assertive. He remembered walking into an ambush with him. Two men step in front, with shotguns. A car skids to a stop nearby. The windows roll down, and two more men, armed with dull black submachine guns, open fire. His brother laughs, and takes out his pistol. No caution, no cover. And yet, thirty seconds later, they walk from the scene, without a scratch on either of them. His brother smiles. To see him in that warehouse, most of him unrecognizable, and much of him simply gone, had been almost too much to bear. Images flashed through his mind, as rapid, silent, and glowing fragments. Joining the family. Drinks and laughter. Summer days on the boardwalk. The heat of life, frantic and biting. His wedding. Unexpected. His funeral. Inevitable.

The woman closed her eyes. Her face briefly twisted in pain once more, before settling into a calm and tired expression. “I’m sorry,” she said, opening her eyes and looking up at the man. The setting sun cast a rich, orange light on the both of them. The man looked away from her. Though he had finally claimed that which he had sought for so long, standing over the bloody and broken body of a twenty year old woman, he could take little joy in his revenge. His brother’s eyes returned, a hazy mental imprint that hung over his vision. He suspected they would seldom leave. Taking a deep breath, he turned around, and began to walk away.

After taking a few steps, however, the man stopped. Partially looking over his shoulder, so that he could address the woman without truly looking at her, he asked “What’s your name?” He didn’t know why he had felt the need to ask such a question. Perhaps, he thought, it would give him an odd sort of closure. It had been two years since his hunt had begun, and yet never in all that time had he learned her real name, only her false identities. Or perhaps he simply wanted to show a little kindness to his quarry. After all, somewhere inside of her, there was still a human.

The woman breathed in through her nose, taking in as deep of a breath as she could muster, and slowly replied “Sophia. And you?” Her voice was quite weak now, so that it was barely above a whisper.

The man glanced back at her. “Daniel.”

Sophia looked closely at his face, and gave him a weak smile. “I remember you,” she said. “You were following me. Lots of people follow me, but I remember you. In San Fran. Tried to shoot me. Missed. Guess your aim has gotten better since then.”

Daniel smiled weakly and nodded. “That’s right. Wasn’t my fault, though. Would have hit you, if some bystander hadn’t pushed my gun out of the way, trying to save you. He didn’t know what you are.”

Sophia gave him as much of a shrug as she could bear to make. “How could he?”

Daniel smiled and nodded, as if conceding the point to Sophia. After looking down and thinking for a moment, he turned to face her completely. “When did it happen?” he asked, once again unsure of why he felt the need to converse with her, but nevertheless feeling practically obligated to.

Sophia looked to the side in thought. She saw the woods at night, the moon rich and swollen alongside a full regalia of glittering stars. Completely alone, and free from the constraining binds of company. A sound in the distance. A silhouette, massive and yet lean. Stepping closer, fascinated. An outstretched hand. A whirlwind of force. An explosion of the senses. A burning pain in her right shoulder and arm as the claws and the teeth sink in. Falling down, the autumn leaves catching her as she hits the ground. The figure springs away, dashing through the trees. It bears little interest in her. It has already eaten, having left the ragged corpses of a large family of deer not far from where she has fallen. But she had come too close, and wild animals, whether fierce and brazen or of the meager sort that crawls and hides from that which it is unsure, will scarce suffer the touch of humans. Sophia smiles. Truly, it had been a bad idea to try to pet a werewolf.

She falls asleep there, lying in a bed of leaves. And when she wakes, and examines herself, her tattered shirt proves that it had been more than a dream. And yet, the flesh beneath it was without injury, save for a few minor cuts. She thinks back on the previous night, looking at her right arm before passing out, and remembers having seen bone. She shudders.

“I was sixteen,” she replied. Daniel looked down in thought. Sophia coughed, before continuing. “It’s been four years since then. I was only able to control it for one.” After thinking for a moment, she smiled, and shook her head. "No," she added, "not even one. Thinking back on it, though, I figure it must’ve been close. It's just... I hadn’t been keeping much track of time ever since... well, you know. So it's hard for me to tell. And near the end of my time with my family, things just started to pass by in such a blur."

As Daniel listened to Sophia, memories of his teenage years flashed across his mind. The smell of his mother's apartment, the lonely warmth of a summer night, the feeling of hunger gripping his stomach tightly, the faces of those he had known. He saw Andre and Luke, his only real friends, though sometimes they played the role of bitter enemies as well. He saw Boss Wise, cleaning his shotgun religiously with his monogram cloth, and nodding as Daniel dropped the take on the foot of the sofa. He felt an echo of the adrenaline rush that had coursed through him during his first kill. "I get it," he said at last, in a worn voice.

Sophia narrowed her eyes. "You don't. How could you?"

Daniel shot her a tired smile. "I may not be a monster, but I sure as hell know what it's like to get caught up in things."

"Caught up in things," echoed Sophia in a weak voice. Nursing her wounds tightly, she tried to shift into a slightly more comfortable position, wincing in pain before settling back against the wall. "It's more than that..." she said in a broken voice, before stopping and looking to the side. "You can't know. Not unless you've felt the bite. The power. The cravings. Hiding myself away in the woods when the full moon came, so that I could let it feast on animals at it’s pleasure."

Daniel looked at her curiously. "You didn't think to try locking yourself up?"

Sophia laughed weakly through her nose. "Oh, I did. Bought a big ole cage from this guy, good at getting things for people. Said it was used for containing bears. And then I picked up some nice, solid chains, too, from the sex shop downtown. The next full moon, I set it all up deep in the woods. Useless. Tore right through it all. I tried a few other things after that, but nothing worked. It always roamed free. So, I figured if... it... had to roam free, then I might as well let it. Just... go as far into the woods as I could, and let it hunt."

"And I'm guessing that didn't work out too well?"

Sophia shrugged lightly. "It worked well enough, for awhile. But one evening, an hour before sunset, after I had set out for the woods, my parents checked my room. They usually didn't. Most of the time, they just... let me do my own thing. But that evening, I don't know, maybe they felt a little guilty for yelling at me after I failed my history final. Wanted to say something to me before I went to sleep, to be nice. They saw that I was gone, and called the police. Curfew, you know? I got picked up. They took me home. And then... it happened."

Daniel looked to the side. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," replied Sophia.

After thinking for a moment, Daniel pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Retrieving one of them and placing it between his lips, he lit the tip with his faded blue lighter. After taking a drag from it, he motioned it towards Sophia and tilted his head. Smiling, Sophia shook her head lightly. Daniel took another drag from it, before looking at Sophia curiously. "How did it first happen, anyway? I mean... how were you turned?"

Sophia cleared her throat before replying. “I was attacked in the woods,” she said, her voice somewhat stronger than before. “It mauled me, and left me there.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes. “So it was a wild one? I’ve read that most of your kind are changed because of spells, or as part of cult initiation rites.”

Sophia shrugged. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read.”

Daniel laughed. “Well, you’re lucky to be alive. I suspect wild wolves don’t usually leave enough of a person behind for them to change.”

Sophia looked hard at him. “Didn’t really seem like luck to me. Not after I ate my mother… my father… my brother…” She stopped for a moment and coughed, before continuing, a tired smile now on her face. “Didn’t eat my sister, though. I was full by then. Just played with her a little. Took her with me when I bolted, after more cops showed up and I got the hell out of there. A snack for later. Cop cars are pretty fast, but catching a werewolf once it gets going, especially after it finds a forest to hide in… well, I don’t have to tell you how hard that is.”

As Daniel looked down at Sophia, he felt a powerful sorrow for her, such that he almost regretted mortally wounding her. Almost, but not quite. “What happened next?” he asked.

Sophia, in a very matter of fact voice, as though she had become completely desensitized to the atrocities she had committed, replied “When the morning came, I woke up in a prairie twenty miles outside of town. My sister was there too, lying nearby. I had been pretty rough with her, but I think that she had survived the trip, since it looked like she had tried to crawl away from me as I slept. Bled to death before she had gotten very far, though. I threw up a few times. Waking up with the taste of my family on my throat, and seeing her like that… I couldn’t take it. And that’s when I decided that it had to end.”

“What do you mean?” asked Daniel, looking at her curiously.

Sophia shifted, her bones making a strange sort of sound, as her shattered ribs finished setting themselves back into place. “I decided to kill myself, the best way that I could figure,” she replied. As she began to stand up, the silver bullets that had pierced her chest were pushed out of her healing wounds, and let out a bright metallic song as they clattered to the floor. “I bought a silver knife from an antique store. Hell, I bought three, just to make sure that at least one was real. I stabbed myself, through the heart, with each of them. I had hoped that would be the end. But like I said, you shouldn’t believe everything you read.”

Daniel pulled out his pistol, and emptied the clip into Sophia. She let out a cry of pain as she fell. Lying on the floor, her body began to twist and writhe, and her flesh bulged and tore, for the sun had finished setting, and the beast within her would be restrained no more. Screaming as her bones snapped and reshaped themselves, and her flesh warped into that of a monster, her eyes became a pair of piercing yellow lights that fixed on Daniel with the hunger of a predator. Daniel turned and sprinted away, letting his gun fall from his grasp, as it had proven to be all but useless. Ere he had gotten far, he felt the full weight of the beast bear down on his back, as Sophia tore into him with her ferocious claws. Tumbling to the ground, he withdrew a dagger from his coat pocket, and sank the rune-etched blade into Sophia’s chest with as much force as he could muster. Ignoring the pain, Sophia knocked Daniel’s arms away, and looked into his eyes for but a moment before sinking her teeth into his throat, effortlessly ripping it apart as she greedily devoured him. The hunt would continue yet another night. And Sophia had long ago surrendered to the fact that, for her, it was a hunt that would never end.

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rubber soul

Okay, Ori. Now that I know you're a young lad and not a middle aged curmudgeon like I am (also male by the way), I have to ask. What got you into garage music? It was kind of old even when I was a young lad. For me I guess everything started with my love for the Beatles and things added up from there. What about you?

Great journal by the way.

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Oriphiel

Thanks!

I mean, I've pretty much always liked older music. As for Garage Rock, it was the Girls in the Garage comp that first got me interested, as well as The Cramps (introduced me to the song Psychotic Reaction with their cover, which in turn led me to the Nuggets comp) and The Pandoras (gateway into revival Garage bands, as well as Bomp! and AIP, and thus the Pebbles comp).

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rubber soul

I like the Pandoras.

I was introduced to the Pebbles series by a guy that owned a record store (I would later work for him). Pebbles was just coming out and I began getting the volumes as they would first come out.Soon I'd be collecting other compilations like Boulders, Back From the Grave, and the Garage Punk Unknowns. And, of course, some of the Girls in the Garage. There's a website that has a great database on just about all the compilations out there as well as a lot of band I hadn't even heard of until the internet arrived.

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