Curve - Horror Head

Curve sounds like a band, but it's really just a talented duo: the astonishing multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia, who composes and plays all the music, and the beautiful, breathy Toni Halliday on vocals.  Curve became an on-again/off-again project for the two of them spanning 5 albums over 15 years.

Garcia is primarily known as a widely admired bass player, but on the Curve albums he really flexes his muscles, playing not only the bass, but the guitars, drums, and everything else.  Nevertheless, his bass lines are still my favorite part of Curve. Perhaps it's because I'm a bass player myself, but his distinctive bass tone and driving pulse stand out for me as the heart of the Curve sound.

Though Garcia and Halliday resisted the shoegazing label, insisting they were doing something unique, looking back from the vantage point of 2016 there is no doubt in my mind that Curve—with its breathy vocals and ringing Cocteau-Twins-like guitar sound— falls squarely within the shoegazing mainstream.