Reeves interview on Friday

11am Eastern US time Fri Jun 20th — Reeves Gabrels chats live with Ken Haas, CEO of Reverend Guitars. Tune in at Reverend’s Facebook page, or their YouTube channel.

Hidden signed MoaLW vinyl

Secret 7" reveal

Secret 7" has revealed the identity of all of the artists behind the artwork of this year's auction. View the full gallery here.

Here's Robert Smith's (sold for £3,500) and Andy Vella's (sold for £610).

Lol & Gray Tolhurst in San Francisco last night

Bear Tree raffle

We’re raffling off The Cure MOALW acetate! This is your chance to win one of the rarest Cure records to exist. At the band’s request all proceeds will go to War Child. £5 a ticket, you can buy as many tickets as you like! UK only! 

https://beartreerecords.com/products/the-cure-charity-raffle-ticket

Clash review of MoaLW

From Clash:

The Cure – Mixes Of A Lost World

A varied, refreshing look at the band's monolithic return to form...

For a band primarily known for their melancholic and immersive songs, a remix album might seem like an odd offering from The Cure. Those familiar with the group, however, will know they have a long-standing relationship with remix culture. From relatively early in their career, their tracks have occasionally been reworked—whether it’s the far superior single mix of ‘Close to Me’ (complete with the beloved trumpet section), or the ‘Mixed Up’ album, released at the height of the Baggy scene in 1990. That record is a mixed bag in terms of quality, but it showcased the flexibility of The Cure’s lush melodies and Robert Smith’s unmistakable vocals.

In the years since, artists as varied as Gorillaz, Faithless, and Crystal Castles have enlisted Smith to lend his signature angst and longing to their dancefloor-ready tracks. Still, an entire remix compilation reimagining the band’s monolithic return to form, ‘Songs of a Lost World’, is a curious proposition. But with all Cure royalties going to War Child UK, why not? Spurred on by a handful of unsolicited remixes he received over Christmas, Smith has managed to rally 24 artists to rework his songs of death and the passage of time.

The results are surprisingly sprightly and effective, with the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Orbital, Four Tet, and Sally C pushing the original album’s eight monochrome tracks into vibrant new territory. Sure, there’s something a little perverse about turning a song about the passing of Smith’s brother into a full-on rave anthem—but it only underscores the emotional power of the originals. Roger O’Donnell’s keys, in particular, are repeatedly used as the melodic backbone for these producers’ fresh interpretations.

Oakenfold’s take of the aforementioned track, ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye,’ goes for something cinematic and truly epic in scope. It’s a nice pivot and is practically begging to be used on a tense movie trailer. Cure superfan Trentemøller goes for a respectfully ethereal go at ‘And Nothing Is Forever’ before things go raucous at the midway point. Daybreakers disassemble ‘Warsong,’ using mere shadows of the original’s menacing guitar and organ to rebuild it into something darkly anthemic and fun.

With only one relatively short album used as a basis for the comp, there’s some repetition over the course of the deluxe edition’s tracklist. It’s a relatively small squabble, though, an unavoidable conceptual one. ‘Mixes Of A Lost World’, for the most part, is a varied, refreshing listen. The Cure have proven themselves to be one of the UK’s most beloved and influential acts. Their sound has stood the test of time and, in doing so, proves quite resilient to being twisted, trimmed, and smudged into other genres. There’s a spooky sincerity inherent in their music that will always defy trends. 

Words: Sam Walker-Smart

7/10

Quietus review of MoaLW

From The Quietus:

Reissue of the Week: The Cure’s Mixes Of A Lost World

Rock remix projects are typically inconsistent, says JR Moores. The Cure’s latest foray into the format is a mixed bag, with the most successful moments those which somewhat stifle Robert Smith’s sadness

JR Moores

There’s no denying that Songs Of A Lost World was a monumental latter-day triumph. But let’s be honest for a minute: how many times have you re-listened to it since its release in November 2024? Be honest now and take into account how morbid it was, even by the standards of The Cure. For 50 minutes, Robert Smith told us again and again that one day he was going to die. Also, that one day you are going to die. And that everyone you know is going to die. At least The Flaming Lips delivered the same message while dressed as massive chickens and showering the listener in confetti, glitter, and balloons. 

The Cure’s fourteenth studio album exists for those times when you will really need it; as nobody’s reaching for their 4K collectors edition of Michael Haneke’s Amour every Saturday before they head to the pub are they? When I find myself on my deathbed, I doubt I’m going to regret that I could’ve spent more time listening to Robert Smith remind me that, sooner, rather than later, I was going to find myself on my deathbed. I don’t mind if you think of me as someone who’d rather listen to an Oliver Burkeman self-help podcast or ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams, instead of unforgivingly bleak and existentially forensic music, but that’s just the way it is.

For the percentage of people who might already have played Songs Of A Lost World to death, as it were, The Cure have now provided a treble album of remixes. It’s a funny old thing, the rock remix album. By nature they are usually patchy. This includes the small number of them that could claim a degree of cultural significance, such as Nine Inch Nails’ Further Down The Spiral. Naturally, some of the artists drafted in will apply more graft than others; with some in the “less graft” camp happy to settle for whacking a donk in among the stems provided, then settling back to wait for PayPal to ping, before summoning their dealer via Signal.

The shoddiest remix albums are seen as cash-ins, but they’re actually less than this because it’s barely believable that many of them turn a profit; many actually come off more like a desperate gamble. Even in the format’s heyday, during the long CD boom, once all the architects had been paid and the booklets printed off, there’d still be plenty anxiety concerning the (near) completists of both remixers and remixees alike who might realise that they simply didn’t need to hear The Crystal Method and Danny Tenaglia extending the length of album tracks which had been satisfying enough in the first place. 

The Cure have prior with 1990’s Mixed Up and its lesser discussed sequel from 2018, Torn Down. The former was condemned by some as a bandwagoning rip-off, received by others as a curiously enjoyable foray back onto the dancefloor after an absence of some years. It has since been reappraised as impressive evidence of the band’s continued quest for relevancy. For Robert Smith at the time, Mixed Up was “the record that drunk Cure fans should listen to, [because] it really makes you feel good, which is unusual for us.”

This time around, most of the contributors are not actively trying to appeal to inebriated listeners to quite the same extent. And you can hear the effort some have made in injecting different kinds of life into the music that accompanies Smith’s recent morbid observations. Paul Oakenfold’s Cinematic Remix of ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’ does what it says on the tin. This pounding combo of synths & strings suggests a gothic reboot of the Mission Impossible franchise in which Tom Cruise battles vampires with Jenna Ortega as his trusty new sidekick. (Handily, if shot, both stars are around the same height.) Similarly full-on renditions, equally suitable for the closing credits of a CGI blockbuster, are provided by Daybreakers and Mental Overdrive.

Most of the tracks foreground Smith’s forlorn and minimally manipulated vocal takes, keeping them high in the mix, if not always throughout the whole song. There are notable exceptions, however, such as the Meera version of ‘All I Ever Am’, on which the voice now entertainingly evokes a chipmunk in a K-hole. Four Tet handles the music of ‘Alone’ so delicately, with his signature blissful jittering, that it’s almost a shame when Smith turns up halfway through to remind us once more of The End. The same might be said of Mogwai’s oceanic and echoing treatment for ‘Endsong’. As might be expected of the pedal-board-focused post rock veterans, it emphasises and embellishes the emotionally engulfing nature of The Cure’s sublime guitar effects. That voice does make an appearance, eventually, but those otherworldly textures are celebrated as the pièce de résistance. 

JoyCut hint, at first, that they might only include Smith’s wordless croaking. Alas, they cop out by using lots of his verses, so it seems like an opportunity missed for disembodied and deconstructed abstraction. The bolder Craven Faults jettison the vocals of ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’ to distil its source’s melancholic essence into a nine-minute ambient instrumental. In contrast Shanti Celeste’s February Blues Remix of ‘Alone’ aims, in spite of its subtitle, for clubby William Orbit euphoria and is at its most effective when Smith’s whisper floats in the surroundings like that belonging to a fairy godfather.

Refreshing positivity is also provided by the Cosmodelica Electric Eden Remix of ‘And Nothing Is Forever’, its upbeat feel helping to reiterate that, although it too is about ageing and finality, this is one of Smith’s most defiant love songs. Another at the lighter end of the spectrum is Âme’s ‘A Fragile Thing’. Feasibly influenced by 1983’s ‘The Love Cats’, in the way it singles out the bassline amid an otherwise sparse track to make for a strangely jaunty experience.

Remix collections tend to be a mixed bag. Mixes Of A Lost World is no different. As with Mixed Up, it invites a mixed reception. The Cure are donating their royalties to War Child UK, so its release needn’t be viewed too cynically. Given that it’s a whopping 122 minutes long, you might want to whittle down its 24 songs into a slimmer playlist spotlighting those cuts that work best. If you have the time and the inclination to bother, that is. As Smith is at such pains to hammer home, there is only so much sand in the hourglass.

Mixes Of A Lost World is out today via Fiction, with at least £1 per purchase going to War Child

NTS takeover

Update: If you missed Robert's Takeover today, or want to listen again...

https://www.nts.live/shows/the-cure

The Cure take over NTS tomorrow. 

tune in from noon until 5pm BST for radio contributions by Robert Smith, Cosmodelica, Daniel Avery, Mogwai, Shanti Celeste & The Twilight Sad

nts.live

Cassettes of Mixes of a Lost World

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NTS schedule

Here's the schedule for The Cure's NTS takeover today. Times shown here are US central.

Starts at noon BST.

US start times are 7am eastern, 6am central, 5am mountain, 4am pacific 1am in Hawaii.

Check the schedule page for the times where you are.
https://www.nts.live/schedule

Daybreakers on their Warsong remix

From Billboard:

Robert Smith Says Daybreakers’ Remix of The Cure’s ‘Warsong’ Has ‘A Real Sense of Drama’: Listen

By Katie Bain 

A collection of remixes of The Cure’s 2024 album Songs of a Lost World is out Friday (June 13), and ahead of the release, electronic duo Daybreakers is exclusively sharing their edit of the group’s “Warsong” from the project.

In Daybreakers’ hands, the steady, heavy, four minute and 17 second original becomes more than six minutes of hypnotic synth and muscular basslines, with a long build releasing into sped up of vocals from The Cure frontman Robert Smith and the entire edit containing the same sense of mystique and style of the legendary U.K. band is known for.

“As long time fans of The Cure, we had always wanted to do a project with them, and via our mutual friend and legendary producer, Mark Saunders, the opportunity arose when Robert got in touch to discuss our interest in doing a remix,” the duo tell Billboard in a joint statement.

Made up of producers Ric Scott and Alex Hush, Daybreakers previous work includes remixes of U2’s “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In It’s Way” and Madonna’s “I Rise.” “I Rise” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart in Aug. 2019, aided by a package of remixes from artists including Daybreakers, Tracy Young, DJLW, Kue and Offer Nissim. “Love Is Bigger Than Anything In It’s Way” also hit No. 1 on this same chart in July of 2018 on the power of a remix collection that Daybreakers was a part of.

Scott and Hush’s first work together was a 2020 edit of Erasure’s “Hey Now (Think I Got A Feeling)” after which they decided to make Daybreakers an ongoing project.

As Mixes of a Lost World project came to life, Smith offered Daybreakers two tracks to choose from, one of them being ‘Warsong” which the pair say “really lent itself to something that we could incorporate our sound with. The song has a conflicted sadness to it but at the same time, we knew we could really make it work with a dance vibe.”

Daybreakers remix of “Warsong” has a real sense of drama,” Smith tells Billboard. “The breakdowns are simple, but far-out, and the vibe is cool, but urgent. It is one of my favorites on the [remix] album.”

Mixes of a Lost World will also feature edits by Four Tet, Orbital, Trentemøller, Chino Moreno, Paul Oakenfold and more. The project is out June 13 via Fiction/Capitol Records. In a statement made when the project was announced, Smith said that The Cure “has a colorful history with all kinds of dance music, and I was curious as to how the whole album would sound entirely reinterpreted by others.”

“To be chosen to do a remix is a great honor and we are thrilled with how much Robert likes the remix and we hope others do as well,” Daybreakers add. “Being included on the remix album alongside such a great variety of talented artists and producers is a huge privilege. Additionally, with all of The Cure’s recording royalties being donated to the WarChild UK charity, it really is for a wonderful cause.”

Far Out review of MoaLW

From Far Out:

The Cure – ‘Mixes of a Lost World’ album review: A rhythmic expansion of the dark realm

Kelly Scanlon

When Robert Smith started receiving an influx of Songs of a Lost World remixes, he felt his world expanding. The Cure have always been prominent (and limitless) world-builders, but what about how these worlds are seen from the other side? What about when we’re let into the side of the Cure that they have no control over, the side entirely reinterpreted by those observing from the sidelines?

The beauty of Songs of a Lost World wasn’t that it proved the Cure still had it; it was all gorgeous hues of the band’s consistent sense of foreboding, the unveiling of impending finality that never revealed itself with enough clarity to know if it was actually real or imagined. This is where Lost World picks up, entrenched in the haze of the ambiguity that never fails to pull us into its rapture, acknowledging the familiarity without feeling too close to a shadow of its former self.

And through that seemingly endless journey of cloaked self-discovery, staring at blood-red moons, wondering “how I got so old”, Smith basked in the fatal beauty of presenting more questions than answers, thriving on vulnerability and suffering while spotlighting the most intricate experiences and feelings along the way. It’s immersive, but in a way that feels grittier in its own darkness, like finding meaning in the trenches of having absolutely nothing (“It’s all gone / No hopes, no dreams, no world”).

As such, a full, complete project like Lost World feels without the need for any kind of expansion, but we all know that finality hasn’t always been Smith’s strong suit. Ever the master of toying with incomplete albums, runtimes and the setbacks of getting it all wrong, Mixes of a Lost World feels like an entirely expected step, one that highlights all of Lost World‘s lost words in technicolour, storyboarding Smith’s inner mind with the freedom of unrestricted conventions.

And that means meandering the depths of the different parameters of dance music, giving Lost World a kind of intensified viscera that ventures beyond the walls of the source material. As Smith explained: “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.”

Notable highlights are the ones that dramatise the original or heighten that sweet spot where the familiar foreboding comes to the shore, like Paul Oakenfold’s ‘Cinematic’ Remix of ‘I Can Never Say Goodbye’, alongside the Orbital Remix of ‘Endsong’. The Twilight Sad Remix of ‘A Fragile Thing’ also gives it an inexplicably retro feel, while Mogwai’s ‘Endsong’ comes in like a storm, unforgiving, powerful from start to finish.

These 24 new versions hold their own as standalone and broader pieces to the puzzle, offering insight into new, previously undiscovered edges to Lost World, ones that offer more in the instrumental segments and the way they compound attention over Smith’s lyrics. Though these new elements rarely come close to the instrumental magic the Cure has already mastered, they certainly offer new avenues for exploration, letting you fester in those ambiguous realms for just a little bit longer.

Perhaps the star here is actually Deftones’ Chino Moreno’s take on ‘Warsong’, not just because of how much darker his composition makes the track feel but also because its added rhythmic cadences and pulsating notes drill in the meaningful urgency behind the track, giving it a more open relevance to today’s political climate and all the ways human conflict is tearing it down, detectable in the understated afflictions alone.

Just like the source material, these undeniable strokes of melancholy also give it an additional sense of vibrancy, taking the band’s original motifs without trying to turn them into something different, something far away from what makes them so great in the first place. Perhaps that’s the real beauty of Mixes; it takes what’s already there and enhances it, giving it more means for possibility beyond the world we’re already familiar with.

Warsong (Daybreakers remix)

Sonic Boom raffle

From Sonic Boom (Toronto):

The Cure Dance Party Alert & Acetate Raffle!

This Saturday June 14 from 1-3pm

Release Playback event with Guest DJ Prince Josh

The Cure 'Mixes Of A Lost World'

Pick up your copy of 'Mixes Of A Lost World' and get a Cure Litho or Tote Bag with purchase (while quantiles last)

ALSO !! At the event there will be a raffle for the Exclusive MOALW Acetate with all proceeds going to War Child!

It is one of only of 24 produced WORLDWIDE! Details and contesting available in store only.

Cure songs in Mixtape game

From Worth Playing:

'Mixtape' is a coming-of-age action adventure game built around the patchwork joy and emotional power of mixtapes.

'Mixtape' will feature music from iconic artists like The Cure, DEVO, Lush, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Joy Division, and many more. 

Thank you note from Robert

From Danny Briottet (Renegade Soundwave):

Got a nice card from Robert Smith in the post thanking me for remix of The Cure’s ‘And Nothing Is Forever’ from forthcoming Mixes of a Lost World album. I actually finished it at 4am due to a deadline, sent it to Robert and went outside for some air and ting, came back feeling mashed only to see a message from Robert pop straight up. I thought bloody hell I hope he’s not gonna tell me he doesn’t like it and to fix it up. But the message said ‘Danny I love it, thank you ‘ - great end to a proper all night old school session. Thanks to Daryl Bamonte for the hookup and my dread mix partner Rico Conning as ever.

Record Parlour auction

From The Record Parlour:

Our auction for The Cure's Mixes of a Lost World acetate has just launched.

All proceeds will be given to the band's charity of choice - @WarChildUK so whatever you spend will be going to a great cause!!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/286628968448

1 week until MoaLW

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Spindizzy raffle

To celebrate the release of The Cure's 'Mixes Of A Lost World', audio fragments from the album have been pressed to vinyl acetate.

We were one of a small number of very lucky independent records shops to be nominated by the remix artists to receive one!

The Acetate was played on request for a week in the store so has some play wear.

If you want to get your hands on this extremely rare piece of The Cure memorabilia, we're running a charity raffle on our website.

You have until 12pm (midday) Monday 9th June to enter. We will then draw a winner and notify them via email by the end of that day.

Tickets cost €10 and all the donations will go to War Child Charity. You can purchase as many entries as you like from our website, link in bio. 1 ticket = 1 entry. The more you buy the greater the chance! Remember ALL proceeds go to charity!!!!

Good Luck! 

https://spindizzyrecords.com/products/the-cure-moalw-acetate-charity-raffle?_pos=1&_sid=46297200f&_ss=r

Secret 7" reminder

From The Cure:

Not long left to get your hands on a one-of-a-kind 7" vinyl of Warsong: Troxy Live 2024 in the @Secret7s auction! Bidding closes 1 June from 2pm uk.givergy.com/Secret7/