Alone

Oh No! THE CURE Release A Remixed Edition Of ‘SONGS FROM A LOST WORLD By Dance/Ambient Musicians In June

Posted on by JL

22 April 2025

Last year goth Gods THE CURE launched their 14th LP,
their first in 16 years, titled SONGS OF A LOST WORLD.

It was named Turn Up The Volume‘s best album of 2024.

TUTV: “In the past 16 years Robert Smith lost his mother, father, and brother.
All the painful experiences surrounding these impactful, indelible passings led
to this brilliant, gloomy record. One long emotionally layered lament, one that
seems to work liberating in the end.

Sonically, it resonates as if you’re part of a funeral march that progresses in slow motion,
just the way the music evolves. The most drastically soul-stirring record I heard all year, accentuating how sorrow can overwhelm and hurt one’s heart and mind. It’s a universal experience that millions, and millions of people who lost loved ones – past, present and
future – can relate to.”

SONGS OF A LOST WORLD

Yesterday the band’s orchestrator Robert Smith celebrated his 66th birthday and announced a remixed edition of that masterpiece, named Mixes Of A Lost World .

A massive collection of remixes — two discs for the standard edition, three discs
for the deluxe — by artists including Four Tet, Paul Oakenfold, Chino Moreno, Mura
Masa, Mogwai, the Twilight Sad, Orbital, Daniel Avery, 65daysofstatic, and more. It
lands on June 13th.

The royalties from the album will benefit WAR CHILD UK, the charity organisation driven
by a single goal – ensuring a safe future for every child living through war. Lots of projects were/are now launched to collect funds for the young victims in the horrible Gaza war.

Robert Smith send this message to the world (yes in capitals): “JUST AFTER CHRISTMAS I WAS SENT A COUPLE OF UNSOLICITED REMIXES OF ‘SONGS OF A LOST WORLD’ TRACKS AND I REALLY LOVED THEM. THE CURE HAS A COLOURFUL HISTORY WITH ALL KINDS OF DANCE MUSIC, AND I WAS CURIOUS AS TO HOW THE WHOLE ALBUM WOULD SOUND ENTIRELY REINTERPRETED BY OTHERS.

THIS CURIOSITY RESULTED IN A FABULOUS TRIP THROUGH ALL 8 SONGS BY 24 WONDERFUL ARTISTS AND REMIXERS AND IS WAY BEYOND ANYTHING I COULD HAVE HOPED FOR. GIVING OUR RECORDING ROYALTIES FROM THE PROJECT TO WAR CHILD HELPS MAKE ‘MIXES OF A LOST WORLD’ AN EVEN MORE SPECIAL RELEASE.”

What the fuck. Why Smith wants to destroy a deeply personal and grieving record
with, mostly, ambient/dance/trip-hop remixes is beyond me. Why wreck heart-and-soul touching songs and turning them in a sort of sinister party soundtrack. The first taster by Four Tet (hear below) says it all.

I have no intention whatsoever to listen to the upcoming, insensible arty farty rubbish.
But that’s just me. It’s none of my business, of course, what Smith wants to do or not.
The one and only absolute great thing here is that all royalties will benefit War Child UK.

Instagram – Pre-order Info

THE CURE Have Their Heart-And-Soul Stirring ‘SONGS FROM A LOST WORLD’ Out – Contender For Album Of The Year

Posted on by JL

4 November 2024

Goth Gods THE CURE launched their 14th album,
their first in 16 years, titled Songs Of A Lost World.

Maestro Robert Smith about the new record.

NME says: “Robert Smith and co’s first full album in 16 years deals in darkness and death,
but with flowers on the grave. ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ feels sufficient enough for the wait we’ve endured, just for being arguably the most personal album of Smith’s career. Mortality may loom, but there’s colour in the black and flowers on the grave.” Full review here. Score: 5/5.

TUTV: In the past 16 years Robert Smith lost his mother, father, and brother. All the painful experiences surrounding these impactful, indelible passings led to this brilliant, gloomy record. One long emotionally layered lament, one that seems to work liberating in the end.

Strong sentiments of heartache, grief, and sadness are omnipresent, but you hear and
feel frequently that Smith has accepted humankind’s inevitable destiny. Live and die. “There’s nothing you can do to change the end‘ he sings on ‘A Fragile Thing‘.

Sonically, it resonates as if you’re part of a funeral march that progresses in slow
motion, just the way the music evolves. Every song starts with a long instrumental
intro of waves of melancholic synths and weeping guitars, and every time when Smith‘s feverish voice joins in, the intensity augments wondrously captivating. Only on two tracks Drone:Nodorne and All I Ever Am the pace goes up a bit, but they have the same overall orchestral somber sonority of the full album.

The most drastically soul-stirring record I heard all year, accentuating how sorrow
can overwhelm and hurt one’s heart and mind. It’s a universal experience that millions, and millions of people who lost loved ones – past, present and future – can relate to.

I played Songs Of A Lost World at least 5 times for
4 consecutive days now, always in full, always. I didn’t
do that with any album this year. I can’t see who will top
this sublime opus in the coming 2 last months of 2024.

SINGLES: Alone / A Fragile Thing

ALBUM


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Instagram – All The Cure Albums

UNCUT Magazine – New Issue With Cover Star ROBERT SMITH

Posted on by JL

20 October 2024

This month Uncut Magazine (British music monthly) delves into the past,
present and future of Goth titans THE CURE with their orchestrator Robert
Smith who’s all over the Internet lately as the band will release their 1st LP,
called Songs Of A Lost World in 16 years on November 1st. So far these are
the two tasters.

– ALONE –


– A FRAGILE THING –

Also articles about Radiohead, Art Garfunkel, Howard Devoto,
Bryan Ferry, Joan Armatrading , Paul Weller and more.

This month’s Free CD is compiled by Kim Deal, which includes
tracks from the Stooges, Black Sabbath, Neu!, The Faith Healers and
Joy Division.

You can purchase a copy and let it be
sent to your home address. Info here.

NME Reviews THE CURE’s Upcoming Album “SONGS OF A LOST WORLD’ And Reward It With 5 Stars

Posted on by JL

14 October 2024

On November 1st Goth icons THE CURE launch their 14th album, their first
in 16 years. We already got two tasters, two soul-stirring pieces, A Fragile Thing
and Alone (listen below)

Reviews from the mainstream media pour in.
This one is by legendary music website/zine NME

“Robert Smith and co’s first full album in 16 years deals in darkness and death, but
with flowers on the grave. “This is the end of every song that we sing,” mourns Robert
Smith on ‘Alone’, the opening track and launch single of The Cure’s long-mooted first
album in 16 years. A radio-alienating, sprawling and cinematic seven-minute gut-punch, ‘Lovecats’ it ain’t – but it speaks to the heart of ‘Songs Of A Lost World’. Inspired by Ernest Dowson’s poem Dregs, Smith said that this was the lyric that “unlocked the record”: one
that begins with an end.

Catching up with NME at various stops along the long and winding path of making the album, Smith teased that the record would be “merciless” and “express the darker side of what I’ve experienced over the last few years”, drawing more on the sounds of goth-rock standard bearer ‘Pornography’, having lost his mother, father and brother in the latter years since 2008’s ‘4:13 Dream‘. Take a deep breath, we’re going in.

Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten recently told NME how the band’s ‘Romance’ cut ‘Favourite’ compares to the likes of ‘Perfect Day’ by Lou Reed in feeling like both “death itself” and “the final hug” – “the saddest and happiest song possible” all at once. That bittersweetness is an art for The Cure, and you can rank ‘And Nothing Is Forever’ among gems like classics ‘Plainsong’ and ‘Pictures Of You’ as another masterfully euphoric sigh, one that sees Smith waltzing into the winter: “I know that my world has grown cold / But it really doesn’t matter if you say we’ll be together / If you say that we’ll be with me in the end”.

With “the dying of the light”, there is, of course, still some light. There are still pop hooks
in the ticking clock rhythms of ‘A Fragile Thing’, as Smith measures how love is “everything”
but ultimately makes peace with how there’s “nothing you can do to change the end”.

You want more gloom? ‘Warsong’ – a pummelling sludge of noise that mourns “the hope of what we might have been” – leads into ‘Drone_Nodrone’, a wailing, noir rocker with a devious earworm chorus that feels like the impish cousin of ‘One Hundred Years’, ‘Burn’ and ‘Killing An Arab’.

Then, album highlight ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’ lays waste with an emotional H-bomb.
“As lightning splits the sky apart, I’m whispering his name / He has to wake up,” pleads Smith.
It musters everything he and the band have in the tank to breathe with that deep, dull ache that lingers when you lose someone closest to you: “Something wicked this way comes / To steal away my brother’s life.

The 10-minute opus of ‘Endsong’ – always intended as the album closer – circles back to
that full stop from the start: how we’re all ultimately dust and “left alone with nothing at the end of every song”. Merciless? Yes, but there’s always enough heart in the darkness and opulence in the sound to hold you and place these songs alongside The Cure’s finest.

The frontman suggested that another two records may be arriving at some point, but
‘Songs Of A Lost World’ feels sufficient enough for the wait we’ve endured, just for being arguably the most personal album of Smith’s career. Mortality may loom, but there’s
colour in the black and flowers on the grave.” Score: 5/5.

ALONE

A FRAGILE THING

Instagram – Spotify

TURN UP THE VOLUME’s JUKEBOX 2024 – 10 New Tracks Added Every Week

Posted on by JL

Every week 10 new rad tracks added

In order to not miss a beat Turn Up The Volume scans the musical
horizon daily (doing it for years now, actually) to stay in touch with
all new things sonically great and shares the results on a weekly
basis.

FULL JUKEBOX


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The 10 new ones added this week

TRACK-BY-TRACK

Band: THE HORRORS
Who: Dark-synth-wavers
from Southend-on-Sea, UK.

Track: THE SILENCE THAT REMAINS

The first single from their upcoming 6th LP, called
NIGHT LIFE. It comes out in March next year.

Expect an other-worldly, synth-layered hallucination.

Instagram – UK Tour Dates
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Band: READ THE ROOM
Who: Alt-rock outfit from Norwich, UK which debuted
last year with their 5-track EP A Place Like No Other.

Track: AGGRAVATE ME

The new single is laced with anthemic vocal hook-lines,
riff-driven grooves and punk spirited modern rock overtones.

Kick-ass haymaker!

Instagram – Spotify
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Band: MARTIAL ARTS
Who: Neighbourhood noise
nuisances from Manchester.

Track: TRIUMPH

Jim Marson (singer/lyricist): “’Triumph’ is a rallying cry for anyone who feels stifled by
societal pressures. It’s an exploration of the tension between personal desires and the pressures of society. Societal norms can suffocate the younger generation, many of whom can feel out of place in a world that demands conformity. It questions the true cost of such conformity to our own potential and values.”

Angry guitar/bass-manic ripper
inflamed with anxious vocals.

Instagram – Spotify
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Band: MAXÏMO PARK
Who: Veteran indie rockers
from Newcastle on Tyne, UK.

Track: THE PATH I CHOOSE
From their 8th LP, titled Stream Of Life.

A titillating tune that’ll make your day.


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Instagram – Spotify
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Band: BIKELANE
Who: Five indies from Oslo, Norway.
FFO: The Strokes, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand.

Track: IT IS WHAT IT IS
From their upcoming debut album
Surrogate Activities, out on October 18th.


Album artwork

Grooy and addictive with
a huge chorus and a bonkers
guitar solo.


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Linktree
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Holy Smoke photography

Band: SLEEK TEETH
Who: Synth-pop duo
from Los Angeles.

Track: OPERATING
Piece from their brand-new
self-titled debut EP, out today.

The start made me instantly think of German fromer electro duo
D.A.F. (Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft), then it progresses
more like a Hot Chip twister with ghostly vocals. Puzzling cut.


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Linktree
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Band: THE CURE
Who: The English goth gods who
have been around for ages.

Track: ALONE
First single from their 14th longplayer, the first in 16 years,
baptized Songs Of A Lost World. It’s out November 1st.

An almost 7-minute funeral march, a slowly progressing lament,
layered with mourning synths. Smith only starts singing halfway
and augments the sombre atmosphere all the way through.

Instagram – Spotify
________________________________________________________________________________________________


(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Antwerp, 23 August 2024)

Band: SLEATER-KINNEY
Who: Post-punk heroines
from Olympia, Washington.

Track: THIS TIME

Last January S-K released their 11th LP with Little Rope.
A deluxe edition arrive soon with this quite smooth piece
as one of the bonus tracks.


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Instagram – Spotify
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Artist: TORIA RICHINGS
Who: Americana songstress
from Sidney, Australia.

Track: COBOWY’S AND MOONSHINE
Tunr from her new 6-track EP Bend And Break.

A vintage country tearjerker.
Melancholic, yearning, sepia-colored
and with moony vocals up front.


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Linktree

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Band: THE KILLS
Who: Singer Alison Mosshart and
guitarist Jamie Hince.

Track: MY GIRLS MY GIRLS
Last weekend they launched an acoustic 5-track EP,
called with one Billie Eilish cover and non-electric version
of 4 songs from last year’s God Games LP

This pearl is my favourite one.
How can you not love Mosshart‘s
room-filling, heart and soul voice.


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Linktree

THE CURE – Listen To New Doom And Gloom Lament ‘ALONE’ From The Goth Gods’ Upcoming 14th LP

Posted on by JL

Daily electricity to load your batteries

26 September 2024

Goth icons THE CURE teased the pending arrival of their 14th LP, their first in 16 years, for some weeks. Now we have all main info. The LP’s title is Songs Of A Lost World and it will drop on planet Earth on November 1. Pre-order info here.


New album artwork

And today the first single, named ALONE has arrived.

Smith: “It’s the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music
recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus. I
had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while,
working with the simple idea of ‘being alone’, always in the back of my mind this nagging
feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be.”

ALONE is an almost 7-minute funeral march, a slowly progressing lament, layered with mourning synths. Smith only starts singing halfway and augments the sombre atmosphere all the way through. After a couple of spins the songs keeps on coming back to haunt you.

This is the end of every song that we sing
The fire burned out to ash and
The stars grown dim with tears
Cold and afraid
The ghosts of all that we’ve been
We toast, with bitter dregs, to our emptiness

All Cure fans already know the song for a long time
as the band played it live a couple of times last year, like here
in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

THE CURE: Instagram

THE CURE – New Single ‘ALONE’ Out This Thursday September 26

Posted on by JL

23 September 2024

Last week Goth gods THE CURE teased the birth of a new album. It would
be their 14th, their first in 16 years and is named SONGS OF A LOST WORLD.

Cure fans received postcards (see image above) with the name of the LP,
and Roman numerals which, translate to 1 November 2024, most probably
the release date.

And today they announced on their socials the arrival of the first single, called ALONE, which will be out this Thursday, September 26. Below you get 12 seconds and it sounds
like a vintage Cure ballad.

THE CURE Premiered Brand New Symphonic Lullaby ‘AND NOTHING IS FOREVER’ Live In Stockholm

Posted on by JL

New striking strokes

12 October 2022

New-Goth-wave giants THE CURE are on their massive Lost World Tour.
So far they revealed two brand-new songs, called Endsong and Alone
played both in Finland and Latvia.

Two days ago they premiered another one in Stockholm.
AND NOTHING IS FOREVER is a vintage symphonic and
melancholic The Cure lullaby with moony Robert Smith vocals.

Watch/listen here…

THE CURE Facebook – Instagram

Energy-Fueled Stroke – Here’s Fuzz And Buzz Duo LOVE IN OCTOBER With New Single ‘ALONE’

Posted on by JL

16 February 2021

Artist: LOVE IN OCTOBER
Who: Indie rock duo based in Chicago, featuring
Sweden-born brothers Erik & Kent Widman

Works: Several EPs made between 2009-2011
and two albums as dance act Eight Bit Tiger. In 2016
they returned as Love In October with another EP,
followed by album Shapes in 2019.

Pick: ALONE – new single

Score: Ever heard The Strokes and Interpol having an electrical jam?
Well, here you go. Love In October combines the New York darlings’
sharp-edged swagger, energy-fueled rock, and crackerjack roll. And it
works pretty damn well! The final result is a galvanizing fuzz and buzz
ripper you can fight your lockdown blues with. Don’t feel alone, this is it!

Right here, right now..


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LOVE IN OCTOBER: Facebook


Brothers in arms…

(photo via website)

Going Bonkers At Home – Here Are THE MERCY KILLS With New Clip For ‘ALONE’…

Posted on by JL

3 June 2020

Hard kicking and hitting engine THE MERCY KILLS out of Melbourne, Australia remastered their top single, ‘ALONE’. A re-worked version of a band and live crowd favourite, from their debut album Happy To Kill You.

Alone is a steamy barnstormer whit a loud and clear ‘it’s only rock and roll but we fucking like it’ attitude. This 4-headed turbo reinvents the nastiest moments of legends New York Dolls, The Stooges and Joan Jett and The Blackhearts. I know, this means 24 Karat firework and solid raw power fierceness. Towering riffs, inflammable hooks, dirty licks, and a yell along chorus. The new accompanying clip is filmed at the homes of the group’s members. If you wanna see what happens with a rock squad after weeks of isolation then you should see this. Elvis is there too, somewhere.
‘
“You can’t make it alone!”

THE MERCY KILLS: Facebook