Silence can sometimes yield to rare and unexpected musical renewal, the kind that arrives without pomp, as if it had been waiting in a coat pocket, warm from the body. This return carries history with it. Curtain stand at the center of the crush: a Parisian group shaped in the early 2000s, long threaded into France’s cold-music lineage. Their presence feels earned: their sound turns gothic and intense, delivered with ferocity: focused, spare, exacting, while dancers surge and sway as though drawn by a shared gravity.
Curtain’s past stretches back through releases that once fixed a moment, including No Flowers by Request, now twenty years on and newly restored in a deluxe reissue by MusikÖeye. Recent performances across France and Europe have set them alongside longtime peers (Martin Dupont, Corpus Delicti, Christian Death, Selofan, Kontravoid), reclaiming shared ground. In its severity and drive, the music brings to mind the hard-edged nocturne of Buzz Kull, the industrial tension associated with Qual, and the ritual pressure found in Dancing Plague; a lineage felt in the room, pressing close.
In the new video for Fire, the camera sinks into an underground room where the air presses close and the night carries a rhythm of its own. The club reads as cavernous yet intimate, a cellar of sound and bodies where heat and motion blur the line between stage and floor. Red strobes rake the ceiling; faces dissolve into motion. No spectacle intrudes – the setting does the work. Sweat-dark walls draw nearer. The crowd packs in shoulder to shoulder, moving in abandon, as Curtain plays, until the room itself seems to inhale and exhale. It feels communal, almost ritualistic…a reminder that this music thrives where ceilings are low and the night stays dense.
Watch the video for “Fire” below:
Their recent album, Between Us, released via Manic Depression Records, anchors this moment. Recorded and mixed by Franck Amendola (Corpus Delicti), it marks a tangible continuation after a long pause: eight tracks that move easily through pop-inflected restraint, dark electro tension, post-punk angles, and indie rock breadth. The record’s reception across France, Europe, and America has been generous, and new material is already taking shape.
Listen to Fire below and order the single here.
Curtain plans to tour Europe to support the album. Stay tuned!
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