''Phantasmagoria'' is the third studio album by Curved Air. Released in 1972, it reached No. 20 in the UK Charts and is notable for its early use of the

EMS Synthi 100 The EMS Synthi 100 was a large analogue/digital hybrid synthesizer made by Electronic Music Studios, London, originally as a custom order from Radio Belgrade for what was to be the Radio Belgrade Electronic Studio, largely thanks to contact betw ...

synthesizer to process lead singer Sonja Kristina's voice on the second side. Unavailable for many years, the album was reissued on CD in April 2007.

Reception

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

called ''Phantasmagoria'' "the culmination of all that Curved Air promised over the course of its predecessors" and "the band's grandest hour by far". Their review praised the vast majority of the individual tracks, especially complimenting the blending of musical styles and absence of pretentiousness.

Track listing

Side One #"Marie Antoinette" (Darryl Way, Sonja Kristina Linwood) – 6:20 #"Melinda (More or Less)" (Linwood) – 3:25 #"Not Quite the Same" (Way, Linwood) – 3:44 #"Cheetah" (Way) – 3:33 #"Ultra-Vivaldi" (Way, Francis Monkman) – 1:22 Side Two #"Phantasmagoria" (Monkman) – 3:15 #"Whose Shoulder Are You Looking Over Anyway?"The poem read by Linwood and processed by

is from

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

's "Phantasmagoria and Other poems":

Canto IV--Hys Nouryture "Oh, when I was a little Ghost, A merry time had we! Each seated on his favourite post, We chumped and chawed the buttered toast They gave us for our tea."

(Monkman) – 3:24 #"Over and Above" (Monkman) – 8:36 #"Once a Ghost, Always a Ghost" (Monkman, Linwood) – 4:25 * Note: "Ultra-Vivaldi is incorrectly listed as being 2:22 on the label of initial green label pressings. One other track was recorded and released as a single, with "Phantasmagoria" on the b-side: #"Sarah's Concern" (Way, Linwood) - 3:20

Personnel

;Curved Air * Sonja Kristina – singing, lead vocals, acoustic guitar (2) *

Darryl Way Richard Darryl Way (born 17 December 1948 in Taunton, Somerset, England) is an English rock and classical musician who was a founding member of Curved Air and co-writer of their Progressive Rock seminal albums from 1970 to 1976. He is best kno ...

–

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

, keyboards (1, 3), tubular bells (1),

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a " pepo". Th ...

(1) *

Francis Monkman Francis Monkman (born 9 June 1949, in Hampstead, North London, England) is an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of both the progressive rock band Curved Air and the classical/rock fusion band Sky. He is ...

– keyboards, electric

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

(8, 9) * Mike Wedgwood – bass, backing vocals, acoustic (6) and electric (9) guitar, percussion (9) *

Florian Pilkington-Miksa Florian may refer to: People * Florian (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname * Florian, Roman emperor in 276 AD * Saint Florian (250 – c. 304 AD), patron saint of Poland and Upper Austria, al ...

– drums, percussion (9) ;Guest musicians * Annie Stewart – flute (2) * Crispian Steele-Perkins –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

* Paul Cosh – trumpet * James Watson – trumpet * George Parnaby – trumpet * Chris Pyne –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...

* Alan Gout – trombone * David Purser – trombone * Steve Saunders – trombone *

Frank Ricotti Frank Ricotti (born 31 January 1949) is an English jazz vibraphonist and percussionist. Early life and education Ricotti was born in London, England. His father was a drummer. Bill Ashton, founder of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (NY ...

–

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

, vibes * Mal Linwood-Ross – percussion * Colin Caldwell – percussion * Jean Akers – percussion * Doris the Cheetah — vocals (4) ;Technical *Richard Rockwood - art direction *John Gorham - cover illustration

References

External links

Track Descriptions

{{Authority control 3 1972 albums Warner Records albums