Phantasmagoria

Artist: Curved Air
Label: Wea International
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 075992619424
EAN: 0075992619424
ASIN: B00000885I

Release Date: 1998-12-08

Phantasmagoria

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Tracks:

Marie Antoinette
Melinda (More or Less)
Not Quite the Same
Cheetah
Ultra-Vivaldi
Phantasmagoria
Whose Shoulder Are You Looking over Anyway?
Over and Above
Once a Ghost, Always a Ghost

Album Description

The band's 1972 album for Warner Brothers. Features nine tracks, including 'Marie Antoinette' and 'Cheetah'.

Customer Reviews:

Hookah-Smokin' Caterpillar Said It All.......2006-06-27

The ALICE IN WONDERLAND inspired cover illustration and the title of this strange and wonderful record are pretty good clues as to what lies within. Some rock fans didn't like this so much and seem to prefer the more conventional approach that this group began to take on later albums. My own assessment is that this was the last (mostly) solid effort by the group. "Ultra-Vivaldi" hasn't aged well (other classically inspired synth wizards, like Wendy Carlos, did this sort of thing much better), but otherwise, this CD will take the willing listener on a mind-bending trip. There's a lot of variety here, from the odd and mysterious ("Whose Shoulder Are You Looking Over Anyway;" which wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to have been the inspiration for Imogen Heap's haunting "Hide And Seek") to the atmospheric and beautiful ("Melinda More Or Less," one of the group's finest melodies and arrangements) to pulsing and driving ("Marie Antoinette," "Over And Above"). If you like AIR CONDITIONING and SECOND ALBUM, you will probably enjoy this, too.

musical ingenuity.......2005-09-14

Curved Air is just one of those bands from the seventies that must be remembered for their musical ingenuity. They experimented with everything they could lay their hands on. And it resulted in some brilliant lp's. Fortunately we have their records on cd now.

a connection between J S Bach and Robert Fripp.......2000-07-29

When listening to this, the final album made by the first incarnation of Curved Air, it's important to remember that it was made in 1972: sound technology has improved incredibly since then. It's a very experimental album, that also has a fair amount of humour. Ultra-Vivaldi, on the original vinyl, was the last track on side one, and its final drone ran on into the lift-out groove, so it repeated indefinitely. Listen carefully to the words of "Not Quite the Same"...

Most experimental track is "Whose Shoulder..." which consists solely of Sonja Kristina's voice reciting an excerpt from a Lewis Carroll poem. Her voice is run through various synthesisers, cut up and distorted, making a perfect bridge between the precision-pop of the title track and the thunder of "Over and Above" which features a number of extra musicians. These three tracks make up the core of the record, a fifteen minute suite which on the original vinyl was presented as a single track.

As a result of enjoying Phantasmagoria I went on to discover both baroque chamber music (via the harpsichord on "Melinda")and ambient and experimental music (via "Whose Shoulder...") - there aren't many records that are capable of pushing someone in such disparate directions!

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