50TH ANNIVERSARY LIMITED EDITION OF 500 INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED COPIES ON TRANSPARENT VINYL

Terry Riley is generally bracketed with such 1960s minimalist composers as Steve Reich and his 1968 album In C, performed by a makeshift orchestra, is a masterpiece of that genre.

A Rainbow In Curved Air takes a different tack, as Riley plays all the instruments. The title track features a scampering organ motif, occasionally erupting in flustered keyboard flourishes. The second track, “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band” anticipates some of Brian Eno’s later ambient work with its drones, delay lines and crudely spliced tape loops.

The sleeve notes are a prose-poem depicting a happy-ever-after utopia. “All wars ended . . ./The Pentagon was turned on its side and painted red, yellow and green/National flags were sewn together into brightly coloured circus tents under which politicians were allowed to perform harmless circus games.” That idea didn’t catch on, but the ideas expounded through Riley’s music later did. – David Stubbs

‘Rainbow in Curved Air’ is a timeless piece of hyponotic cyclical music (as was called then), played primarily on the organ.

Riley’s music has been a minor influence of rock and prog rock musicians. This is probably the album that inspired Pete Townshend (e.g. how did you think ‘Baba Riley’ came about), Soft Machine (listen to the opening of the Mike Ratledge’s composition on “Third” and then several subsequent Machine albums)and I recently discovered Curved Air’s Francis Monkman (check out the excellent and cheap, Decca box set “Legend Of The Mind”). In fact, Curved Air claimed to have taken their name from this album’s title.