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Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
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Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Airconditioning was the November 1970 debut album by British rock group Curved Air. It reached number 8 in the UK albums chart in December, 1970.

This, Curved Air's first album, achieved instant success due in no small part to the clever marketing of the initial copies. Although it has been done many times since, I believe this was the first commercially produced picture disc. Initial copies came in a clear plastic sleeve, with only the actual LP (complete with images of full frontally naked women), inside. This of course made it instantly desirable, no matter what the music was like. The problem was that after a number of plays, the paint started to be worn off by the stylus! (I apologise if this means little to the CD generation!).

As for the music, it is actually very good. The combining of Sonja Kristina's distinctive vocals with the instrumental prowess of Francis Monkman (keyboards) and Daryl Way (violin) making for some excellent tracks.

The opening song, "It happened today", sees Kristina sounding very assured, backed by some excellent violin, particularly on the slower instrumental ending. There's a good mix of soft tracks, where Kristina is given the opportunity to bring her unique voice to the fore ("Screw", "Situations"), and funkier or more upbeat pieces ("Stretch", Hide and seek").

It is however the two "Vivaldi" pieces which form the signature tracks of the album. "Vivaldi" is a 7 minute track featuring virtuoso multi-tracked electric violin by Daryl Way. While loosely influenced by the work of the namesake composer, this is an original composition. It was later covered on keyboards by SKY when Monkman joined that band. The theme is reprised at a more sedate pace but with exploding fireworks on the brief "Vivaldi with Cannons" to end the album.

The hype surrounding this album meant that it found an audience far quicker than it otherwise would have, but in truth, it is a mighty first album by any standard.

In its initial vinyl form, Curved Air's debut album is one of the prog rock movement's most prized artifacts — not for the music (for that, it goes without saying, is flawless), but for the picture-disc format which had never previously graced a 12" rock record. A glimmering of that sought-after magnificence lives on, of course, in the artwork which has graced every subsequent release, this Collectors' Choice reissue included. Sadly, however, no other attempt is made to replicate the original jewel; indeed, beyond a straightforward dub of the album, Air Conditioning's American CD debut is something of a disappointment. No bonus tracks, no liner notes, no remastering — nothing, in fact, beyond one of the finest classical rock fusions of the age. Curved Air were an unwieldy beast at the best of times, an uneasy liaison between Sonja Kristina's rampant rock sensibilities and her bandmates' undisguised virtuosity.

Keyboard player Francis Monkman, in particular, led the group into some genuinely uncharted territory — it was he who named the group after a Terry Riley composition; he who consumed side two of each album for a series of wild experiments, most of which incorporate acoustic folk, free form jazz, and a hefty dose of Vivaldi. Not that this was a bad thing. Indeed, Air Conditioning rates among the great debut albums of 1970s rock, a hybrid whose breathless audacity stands in starkly good-natured contrast to the po-faced noodlings of the genre's other leading progenitors. Even in full, fanciful flight (the instrumental "Rob One" or the sawing discordant "Vivaldi"), you can hear the band enjoying themselves, as Darryl Way's violin soars to pitches unknown to rocking man, the immortally named Florian Pilkington-Miksa conjures brand new rhythms from his percussive arsenal and Monkman. Well, Monkman is as Monkman does, but even when you know what's going to happen next, a frill or a flourish still leaps out to surprise you.

Kristina, meanwhile, possesses one of the most distinctive voices of the age, a virtue which is apparent from the moment she enters on the opening "It Happens Today." Hints of Grace Slick enter her delivery during the Airplane-like "Stretch," but it's a fleeting comparison. By the time you hit "Propositions," all echoed riffs and space age synth, Curved Air don't sound like anything else on earth. You do, however, notice how many subsequent bands sound a lot like them.

01."It Happened Today" (Francis Monkman, Sonja Kristina Linwood) – 4:55
02."Stretch" (Darryl Way, Monkman) – 4:05
03."Screw" (Way, Linwood) – 4:03
04."Blind Man" (Way, Rob Martin) – 3:32
05."Vivaldi" (Way) – 7:26
06."Hide and Seek" (Way, Linwood) – 6:15
07."Propositions" (Monkman) – 3:04
08."Rob One" (Martin) – 3:22
09."Situations" (Way, Martin) – 6:17
10."Vivaldi (With Cannons)" (Way, Monkman) – 1:35