#curt-smith

#curt-smith

It is as if his past two decades of inflammatory political activism hasn't hurt his reputation. What's more, things will soon pick up, he assures us, because his morphine has just kicked in. A smatter of laughter. Probably joking? Opiate allusions aside, the between-songs narrative is a classic tour-de-Moz. He stumbles from self-hype to castigating jealous bitches and his customary bete noire, the cancel culture that has so thoroughly deplatformed him.

It's impossible to quantify the emotional landscape of a song-there's no judgment more subjective-but to my ear, "Ceremony" captures the drama of an unforgettable moment that feels like it's going to change your life forever, one where everything that's been is about to meet the future, and you can feel the unnamable tension of possibility swelling until it's about to burst.

It is billed as Danny L Harle's debut album, which it definitely isn't his actual debut album, Harlecore, came out in 2021, although in at least one sense, Cerulean is markedly different from its predecessor. It's the weighty guestlist, featuring Clairo, Caroline Polachek, PinkPantheress, MNEK and more, a reflection of Harle's ascension into the major leagues of pop production: he's worked with Polachek before, as well as Florence + the Machine and Dua Lipa (who also features on Cerulean), among others.