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“Rainbow in Curved Air” demonstrates the straightforward pattern technique but also has Riley improvising with the patterns, making gorgeous timbre changes on the synthesizers and organs, and presenting contrasting sections that has become the basic structuring of his works (“Candenza on the Night Plain” and other pieces). [source]

The largely improvisational nature of the work, based on modal scales, owes much to jazz and Hindustani classical music. Some jazz musicians had explored overdubbing techniques before, notably Bill Evans, one of Riley’s piano “heroes”,[3] on his classic album Conversations with Myself from four years earlier, with its three piano tracks; but Riley uses a far wider range of instruments and colors. [source]

David Behrman – Producer / John A. Johnson – Preparation Engineer / Glen Kolotkin – Engineer / Terry Riley – Composer, Dumbek, Electric Harpsichord, Keyboards, Organ, Piano, Primary Artist, Rocksichord, Sax (Soprano), Tambourine / Howard H. Scott – CD Preparation, Preparation / Roy Segal – Engineer

[A guide to Terry Rileys music]