The Curved Air Rarities Series Volume 2, Curved Space and Infinity

From the vaults and long deleted catalog numbers comes The Curved Air Rarities Series Volume 2: Curved Space & Infinity (Curved Air Records 002). The Brit prog band is caught in a psychedelic space-metal jam mode on two sessions somewhat separated in time but unified in their free, open spacey context. Disk one contains "Curved Space," disk two "Infinity."

The first was edited down from five hours of jamming from 2001 (?) and features Francis Monkman and Mike Gore on guitars, Rob Martin on bass guitar and Florian Pilkington-Miksa on drums.

The second disk, hailing from somewhat later, involves Pilkington-Miksa, Robert Norton on keys and Kirby Gregory on guitar.

This is the sort of thing they did as early as 1968--and sounds virtually nothing like the typical studio sessions. It's all space, all jam, and nothing in the way of songs.

But for the jam-space crowd out there this is wholesome good fun, deliberately off-track and filled with a huge quantity of stars and dark matter!

It's a reminder of the jam roots of the later '60s and in fact still sounds fresh and interesting.