I wasn’t too sure about having this is the series as I did feature it back in December 2013. But it’s simply to good to ignore…..
As I said back then, Curve came to prominence in Manchester at the beginning of the 90s at a time when the Madchester sound was in full flow. Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia offered up something rather different and much more challenging to listen to. Looking back over press cuttings that reviewed the debut EP, Blindfold, you can see there was near unanimous acclaim. Stuart Maconie in NME describes the music as “comprising biker torch songs” while guest reviewer Julian Cope said the singing “reminded him of an indie Kate Bush.”
Melody Maker said the singer was “gifted with Deborah Harry’s bitchiness, Sinead O’Conner’s rage, Rose Carlotti’s perversity, Harriet Wheeler’s sensitivity and Liz Fraser’s timeless glow and that she was doubly fortunate that the rest of the band were able to do things with their guitars and beatboxes that ‘can set alight the skies then extinguish them at will.” Eight months later, the paper was still so enthused by Blindfold that it placed it at #5 in the Single of the Year rundown, headed only by Unfinished Symphony, Losing My Religion, Higher Than The Sun and Smells Like Teen Spirit.
It still sounds powerful and other-worldly some 27 years on and all four tracks could easily have passed off as being the lead track.
mp3 : Curve (feat JC001) – Ten Little Girls
mp3 : Curve – I Speak Your Every Word
mp3 : Curve – Blindfold
mp3 : Curve – No Escape From Heaven
I don’t think Curve bettered the overall quality of the debut EP with subsequent similar type releases, although individual tracks The Colour Hurts and Fait Accompli are the one I enjoy most of all these days.
This is another band I’ll likely turn my attention to at some point during the ICA series and qualify them for the 2020 World Cup, where I’ve no doubt they will draw The Cure in the first round and thus force men into untold agony. But then again, if anyone else out there, male or female, wants to wax lyrically about what Ms Garcia did to their nether regions while they listened to Curve, then please feel free to share your thoughts, graphic or otherwise.
JC
PS : Thinking of Toni Halliday…..I never need an excuse to post one of my all time favourite pieces of music:-
mp3 : Leftfield – Original
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
What Toni Halliday did to my nether regions stays between me and her. Well, OK, just me then…
I’m a huge fan of Fait Accompli and Missing Link, though even their little-known later stuff is very much worth a listen.
I always had some Curve singles that soon became a collection of Curve albums, and they are redolent of that early 90s alternative sound that blended shoegaze with dance sounds that weren’t house based. Actually, they might have started that micro-trend. I still have my Curve stash and enjoy them. “Fait Accompli” was a corker; indisputably. Can’t say Ms. Garcia moved me though. I thought she looked like a femme Gary Numan… or maybe Gary Numan looks like her! I did try the pre-Curve State Of Play album. You’d do well to avoid that one! Ouch. It reallysounded like a product of members of the Eurythmics band at their nadir [’85-’86]… which it exactly was.
10 Little Girls really is a wonderful track. Was playing it very loud this afternoon
no way, its “I Speak Your Every Word” is insane, tks man