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The second album from Curved Air is called Second Album. It reached number 11 in the UK Charts on 9 October 1971, and the single Back Street Luv / Everdance became a UK number 4 chart hit on 7 August 1971. The line-up for this album consisted of: Ian Eyre (bass), Sonja Kristina (vocals), Francis Monkman (guitars, keyboards, VCS3 synthesizer), Florian Pilkington-Miksa (drums), and Darryl Way (violin, piano, vocals)
With the introduction of a VCS3 synthesizer this album seems much more focussed, yet also has a greater variety of styles. To me it’s a much stronger offering, more personal and mature than their first. The album opener is Young Mother with its echoes of Pink Floyd’s On The Run or early Genesis, particularly in the jazz-styled synth work. This is followed by the outstanding single Back Street Luv, really the only piece of their work that I actually recognised before buying these albums. Dark and brooding verses are interspersed with boppy choruses. Jumbo is almost like a song from the musicals with Sonja singing in the style of Elaine Paige. Not literally, but that kind of singing where each note of the tune matches a word in the lyric. It’s a beautiful ballad reminiscent of Renaissance (the band not the era). Track 4 is You Know, great guitar work but possibly the weakest track on the album. The final track on side one is Puppets, a beautiful yet menacing tune with a clockwork beat.
The side two (like a CD has sides!) only has three tracks and opens with Everdance which featured on the B-side of their second single. A driving violin led tune played in a ‘gypsy’ style. This is followed by another anachronistic offering, the rather odd Bright Summer’s Day. Musically it sounds a bit like Cockney Rebel and would actually have fitted better on the first album. The last track, at almost thirteen minutes long, is the epic Piece Of Mind. This starts with tribal drumming, synth-brass, violin and a heavy piano. The tempo changes and we are drawn up into a crescendo, then quiet. There is a beautiful piano and strings section as we set off again getting more and more frantic, then quiet. Some subdued drumming and piano work underpins Sonja reading a passage from TS Eliot’s The Wasteland. The music starts again and we’re off to Arabia for a bit in the style of Emerson Lake and Palmer before reverting back to the sea-like drumming and piano which gradually fades into the distance.
