Terry Riley, A Rainbow in Curved Air (side A)

A lazy mental association with 1971's A Rainbow in Curved Air would emphasize analog synthesizer arpeggios that rise and fall.  Synthesized arpeggios definitely appear frequently, though many of them are set at such a fast pace as to de-emphasize the pattern of notes created and instead sound almost like a chord.  What surprised me, on a fresh listen, was the linear evolution of "A Rainbow in Curved Air", with frequent breaks from this memorable stereotype.  Some parts break down to a more rhythmic and almost noise-oriented palette.  Sounds and parts rise and fall and change.  Side B's "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band" relies more on shifts in simple drones without even the arpeggios that I expected from Riley. 1971 falls just after rock music's obsession with hard-panning, but it's used a lot here, including a delay which causes a sound to alternate speakers in time.  The sound of the album is bright and modern, almost excessively so, but the cover image is distinctly not modern, and instead feels overtly dated.