Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air

Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air

A Rainbow In Curved Air is one of the most important and influential experimental albums of the late 1960s, and a landmark recording in the development of minimalism, electronic music and ambient music. Recorded in 1968 and released by CBS Records in 1969, the album captures American composer Terry Riley creating an extraordinary combination of repetition, improvisation, tape manipulation, electronic keyboards and percussion.

Riley was already an important figure within the emerging American minimalist movement, having worked alongside artists including La Monte Young and developed his pioneering approach to repetition and sustained tones. With A Rainbow In Curved Air, however, he pushed those ideas into a much more colourful and psychedelic direction, creating music that could appeal equally to experimental, jazz, progressive rock and electronic music listeners.

The eighteen-minute title track is the centrepiece of the album. Riley performed and overdubbed the various instrumental parts himself, using electric organ, electric harpsichord, rocksichord, dumbec and tambourine to build an intricate, constantly evolving wall of sound. Fast repeating keyboard figures, layered melodies and Middle Eastern-influenced percussion gradually shift between energetic, hypnotic and meditative passages.

The result feels remarkably ahead of its time. Rather than relying on conventional song structures, Riley creates a continuous musical environment in which small rhythmic and melodic patterns overlap and evolve. His use of overdubbing and tape techniques was particularly innovative, effectively allowing a single performer to create the sound of an entire ensemble.

The extraordinary Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band occupies the entire second side. Built around soprano saxophone, electric organ and tape-loop technology, the piece is darker and more atmospheric than the title track, using sustained tones, drones and repeated phrases to create an immersive, hypnotic soundscape. Riley's innovative time-lag accumulator, created using two tape machines and a loop of tape, produces the ghostly "phantom band" effect referenced in the title.

The album's influence on subsequent music is enormous. Its distinctive keyboard patterns and rhythmic repetition directly influenced Pete Townshend, whose The Who composition Baba O'Riley was named partly in tribute to Riley. The album also had a significant impact on the development of ambient music, progressive rock, electronic music and later minimalist composition, with artists such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams working in a musical landscape Riley helped establish.

Its influence can also be heard in progressive rock, with Soft Machine's "Out-Bloody-Rageous" drawing heavily on the electronic and repetitive techniques explored on A Rainbow In Curved Air.

For collectors of Terry Riley vinyl, minimalist music, experimental electronic music, ambient, psychedelic music and progressive rock, this is an essential record. It sits at the fascinating intersection of avant-garde composition and psychedelic-era experimentation, making it a particularly important release for anyone interested in the origins of modern electronic music.

A genuinely groundbreaking album, A Rainbow In Curved Air remains hypnotic, colourful and strangely contemporary more than half a century after its release.

Tracklist

Side A

1. A Rainbow In Curved Air – 18:40

Side B

1. Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band – 21:40