Mandala cover Curved Air's 1971 hit Back Street Luv in new video

(Image credit: Mandala)

Anglo-Scandic prog trio Mandala have released a video for their brand new cover of Curved Air's 1971 No. 4 hit Back Street Luv. The band, who released their most recent album, Echoes Of Your Love last November, turned their hand to the prog classic after they got bored waiting for gigs to start up again.

"Back Street Luv is a song that i’ve loved for many years.," explains Mandala multi-instrumentalist Rhys Marsh. "It was one of my favourite songs when Will and I formed Mandala, back in 1997, and one of the key songs in defining what kind of band Mandala was going to be.

"I was listening to the song about a month ago — actually on repeat for about 30 minutes, whilst i was driving to the studio one morning — and I realised that it fit my voice really nicely, both with the low croon, and the higher belting style. since Mandala isn’t able to get together to record a new album at the moment, we couldn’t wait any longer to record something, so we just impulsively decided to have some fun with this. There’s something really hypnotic about the main riff, and while i love the way that Curved Air decorated their songs with classical elements, i really wanted to unleash that riff and put it into a rock trio setting.

"I actually met Sonja Kristina about 20 years ago, when I worked in a guitar shop on Denmark Street. she was lovely, and we had a nice little chat. I hope that she and the rest of the band approve of our rock trio version!"

Mandala previously released a video for Soul In The Night, from Echoes Of Your Mind.

Artists

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.