Cloud 10 Featuring Sonja Kristina - Hamonics OF Love

Old and more recent glides from Curved Air songstress

As the fulcrum of Curved Air, singer Sonja Kristina helped define the band’s mixture of prog, jazz, folk and a gamut of other musical styles. When the Air finally thinned, she went solo, famously dubbing one album Songs From The Acid Folk, while this 1994 collection recorded under the banner of Cloud 10 was dubbed “astro-folk”.

With the gypsies at dawn arrangements, this doesn’t grab you by the throat on first play, but does work its way under your skin with subsequent rotations. Angel might be a rumination upon her split from longtime partner Stewart Copeland (where she sings “I’m not to blame/ You’re not to blame”); Heart Of Glass, meanwhile, isn’t a cover of the Blondie song, but a folk reel with a dance pulse.

As Curved Air-heads will know, there were fresh interpretations of songs such as Elfin Boy and Blindman. The best track, however, is the emotive cover of Irish songstress Eleanor McEvoy’s sublime A Woman’s Heart. Complete with six bonus cuts, sleevenotes and limited to 2,000 copies, this will no doubt be snapped-up by those who attended the recent Curved Air reunion shows.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Market Square | MSMCD 150

Reviewed by Ian Shirley
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