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”, filmed at Les Caves Saint-Sabin in Paris, the camera sinks into the underground venue 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:
While their recent album Between Us, released via Manic Depression Records, marked a powerful return after a long pause, “Fire” points firmly forward. The single is taken from Curtain’s forthcoming album, due in March/April, which is currently in production and mixed by Franck Amendola (Corpus Delicti). This next chapter builds on the momentum of Between Us while pushing deeper into the band’s physical, club-driven intensity—new material already sharpening its edge in real time.
Listen to “Fire” below and order the single here.
Curtain plans to tour Europe in support of the upcoming album. Stay tuned.
Catch Curtain live:
- Jan 30 Les vieux de la vieille – Reims, France
- Jan 31 Brasserie de la Mule – Schaerbeek, Belgium
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