Curve (band)

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Curve
Curve live at Paradiso, Amsterdam, 1992
Curve live at Paradiso , Amsterdam , 1992
General information
Genre (s) Alternative rock , electronica , shoegazing
founding 1990
resolution 1994, 2005
Website www.curve.co.uk
Founding members
Dean Garcia
Toni Halliday
Live members
guitar
 Alex Mitchell
guitar
 Debbie Smith
Drums
 Steve Monti

Curve was a British alternative rock / electronica band founded in London in 1990 , consisting of guitarist and bassist Dean Garcia and singer-songwriter Toni Halliday.

history

Dean Garcia (* 1958) and Toni Halliday (* 1964) met through Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics . Garcia was the bass player for the Eurythmics live band from 1983 to 1984 and also played on the two studio albums Touch (1983) and Be Yourself Tonight (1985). Toni Halliday was at the time under contract as a solo artist with Stewart's label Anxious Records . Halliday and Garcia first founded the short-lived band State of Play in the mid-1980s , but continued to pursue their solo projects in the meantime, until they finally reunited as Curve in 1990 .

Curve released three highly acclaimed EPs on Anxious Records in 1991 , which were particularly successful in the independent charts . The debut album Doppelgänger was able to place in the UK album charts in March 1992. An extensive tour followed, during which Halliday and Garcia were supported by the two guitarists Debbie Smith (later Echobelly ) and Alex Mitchell, as well as by the drummer Steve Monti (formerly with Ian Dury and the Blockheads ). Highlights of Curves' live concerts include a performance at the Glastonbury Festival in 1992 and a joint US tour with The Jesus and Mary Chain and Spiritualized .

Curve's second studio LP Cuckoo from 1993 was more uncompromising and less catchy and could not surpass the previous chart successes. The failure and the subsequent exhausting tour led to the decision in 1994 to break up the band.

In 1996 Curve returned with the EP Pink Girl With the Blues . The following year they released Chinese Burn , a pre-release single from the new album Come Clean , which was released in 1998. The LP had stronger electronic music influences than the previous albums. The commercial success of the LP encouraged Halliday and Garcia to carry on. Smaller live appearances in Europe followed.

To Come Clean followed in 2001 a published exclusively on the Internet compilation entitled Open Day at the Hate Festival , and the same year the album Poison . In 2001, The New Adventures of Curve, an LP that was once again only available on the Internet, and numerous other tracks that can be downloaded from the group's website were released.

In 2004 the band released a retrospective with the double CD The Way of Curve . In 2005 Toni Halliday announced her final departure from Curve.

Dean Garcia subsequently started numerous new projects (including The Black Holes , The Chronologic , The Secret Meeting , KGC , Inkraktare , Morpheme , Blurred City Lights ), the most consistent and productive being the collaboration with his daughter Rose Berlin under the name SPC ECO . Toni Halliday released an album in 2010 with her solo project Chatelaine .

style

Largely characteristic of Curve's music are tightly layered, distorted electric guitar tracks accompanied by hard beats, which contrast with Halliday's intense, sometimes ethereal singing. The lyrics are mostly about alienation, addiction, lust, romance and dwindling love. Curve's debut album was compared by the critics with the shoegazing bands popular at the time, such as Lush , Ride or My Bloody Valentine , whereas from the second album onwards they were assigned a wide variety of styles, including industrial . With Come Clean and the later recordings, the electronic part dominates, whereby the once significant guitar sounds hardly occur anymore.

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
UK UK
1992 doppelganger UK11 (1 week)
UK
1993 Cuckoo UK29 (1 week)
UK

More studio albums

  • Come Clean (1998)
  • Poison (2001)
  • The New Adventures Of Curve (2002; released online download only)

Compilations

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
UK UK
1993 Radio sessions UK72 (1 week)
UK

More compilations

  • 1992: Pubic Fruit
  • 2001: Open Day At The Hate Fest (released as download only)
  • 2004: The Way Of Curve (double CD)
  • 2010: Rare And Unreleased (only released as download on Bandcamp )

EPs and singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
UK UK
1991 Blindfold
 UK68 (3 weeks)
UK
EP
Frozen / Coast Is Clear
 UK34 (3 weeks)
UK
EP
Clipped / Cherry
 UK36 (2 weeks)
UK
EP
1992 Faît Accompli
doppelganger 		UK22 (3 weeks)
UK
Horror Head
doppelganger 		UK31 (2 weeks)
UK
1993 Blackerthreetracker
Cuckoo 		UK39 (2 weeks)
UK
EP
1996 Pink Girl With the Blues
 UK97 (1 week)
UK
1998 Coming Up Roses
Come Clean 		UK51 (2 weeks)
UK

More singles & EPs

  • 1993: Super Blaster
  • 1997: Chinese Burn
  • 1998: Alligators Getting Up
  • 2002: Perish
  • 2003: Want More Need Less

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Touch - Eurythmics. Allmusic, accessed February 9, 2011 .
  2. ^ Be Yourself Tonight - Eurythmics. Allmusic, accessed February 9, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Top 40 Official UK Albums. The Official UK Charts Company, March 1992, accessed February 9, 2011 .
  4. ↑ Exclusice Interview: SPC ECO's Dean Garcia Love Is Pop, September 6, 2013
  5. ↑ Curve. NME Interview, June 27, 1992. In: New Musical Express (NME). Cuckoo's Nest - the Curve archive, accessed February 22, 2011 .
  6. ↑ Boomerang & Roll. 1998. In: Alternative Press. Cuckoo's Nest - the Curve archive, accessed February 22, 2011 .
  7. ↑ a b c Chart sources: UK