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It took five editions of CURVES – reissues not included – before we were confident enough to go for the mother of all road trips: following the Alps and the Pyrenees, California finally his next. Let‘s not forget: CURVES was born in the Alps, and this is where everything began. The passes between Munich and Mont Blanc, between Basel and Lake Wörth are where we feel at home. CURVES was given its name because our lifestyle does not follow a straight line. But somewhere at the back of our minds, we realised there had to be life beyond the Maritime Alps and, on the long stints through the Provence down to the Mediterranean, this was what drove us on. The sun on your face. Rugged landscape. The smell of dust and salt, and the sudden realisation that it is not only the magic of the curves that makes driving what it is, but also the sheer breathlessness of being on the road.

  • That is precisely the moment when you long to drive on and on through the promised land. To an inhibited Californication. One of the things you really ought to do is leave the eight-lane highway in the Los Angeles Basin and turn onto Mulholland Drive, then down Highway No. 1 to the Pacific coast. Place names like song titles: Malibu, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz. Then San Francisco and be like Steve McQueen for half an hour. Followed by Silicon Valley and suddenly Yosemite National Park. Mountains, nature in all its glory and solitude – landscapes that make an Ansel Adams photograph look like an income tax return. Coffee stops with a cigarette hanging from the corner of your mouth while scuffing our boot heels in the dust. We are giants ...

  • We watch as the green, sprawling wilderness is swallowed up in the burning apocalyptic heat of scorched rocks, and by the time we reach the border to Nevada we no longer have any idea how to write the word ”curve“. CURVES – doesn’t that ring a bell? Further and further into the desert and then, somewhere between appalled and blown away, through Las Vegas. The Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree – after leaving Palm Springs, we begin once again to believe that the time spent chewing dust is now a thing of the past. Back in Los Angeles, we simply let the car roll down to the beach at Venice Beach. A few minutes to catch our breath. And then start all over again. Rewind, repeat. California forever so.

  • Ab Dezember erzählen wir unsere Geschichte in CURVES/California. Das wird ganz groß. Versprochen!

  • (C) Ben Winter / Stefan Bogner