The Curious Treatment

Russ Curry had an epiphany the first time he heard Kraftwerk’s landmark 1974 electronic-pop album Autobahn. “When I was 12 or 13 years old, I lived in the Midwest and like everyone else I listened to Boston or Kansas or stuff like that. It was boring,” says Curry, speaking on his cell phone while driving near his home in Iowa City. “The music and the culture seemed boring—I’ve since learned that it’s not what’s on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Still, hearing Autobahn rung my bell in a big way. It led me to understand not only that maybe there was a different way to listen to music, but also that I could live my life differently.

“That music spoke very clearly to me.” 

In 1988, after graduating from the University of Iowa, Curry founded Curious Music, a small-town Midwest label dedicated to electronic music. He started releasing works, in both solo and in collaborative configurations, by such legendary artists as the Swiss-born German electronic musician and composer Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, both of Cluster; the West German record producer and musician Conny Plank (who helped to define the krautrock genre); and British ambient-music composer Roger Eno, the younger brother of producer and musician Brian Eno. 

“I was being exposed to all of this incredible music that I thought nobody knew about,” he says. “I felt like I had encountered this secret world with this secret musical language. I wanted to bring it to the world.”

But by 2001, before the advent of the internet and social media, Curry found it difficult to build an adequate audience and the label fell dormant. The 2017 death of David Bowie reignited his interest. “That gave me pause for thought,” he says of the reboot. “His death reminded me how short life is. I felt the work of Curious Music was unfinished. I found I still had the flame, the passion, to do this type of work.”

In the past four years, Curious has released or re-issued works by Roedelius, Brian Eno, former Windham Hill artist Tim Story, ex-Dream Academy member Kate St. John and Harold Budd, including the vinyl edition of Budd’s intriguing 1996 minimalist masterwork Luxa. Recent releases include Invisible Hand, Heavy Color’s soundtrack to an environmental-justice film documentary produced by Mark Ruffalo (reviewed in Issue 314); and Green Cone, by composer and visual artist Amanda Berlind, which is accompanied by a comic book. Upcoming projects include a solo album from Icelandic film composer Bjarni Biering plus Moebius Strips, a museum installation of work by the late Dieter Moebius of Cluster.

Last year, Curry also published the English translation of The Book: The Autobiography of Hans-Joachim Roedelius, a limited-edition hardbound work from the now 86-year-old music pioneer with a foreword by Brian Eno. The book marks a decades-long relationship between Curry and Roedelius that started with a fan letter. At 16, Curry wrote Roedelius to share his admiration for the visionary musician. Two months later, Roedelius replied with a hand-written letter accompanied by a dried flower. “I could not believe it,” Curry says. “It was like getting something from Mars. It had a huge effect on me. To get a friendly hand-written letter—and a flower—from this amazing talent, who to me was as important as the Beatles or Chuck Berry, just blew my mind. 

“It stuck with me.”

His passion infuses the high-quality product released by Curious Music—Curry calls it the Curious Treatment. “I want my releases to be an experience,” he says. “It’s an artful product, not just a record release—there’s a spiritual experience for those that want that. We’re presenting music that has a deep emotional and spiritual aspect to it.”

Curry even puts “a little Easter egg” in each release, though he declines to elaborate. “That’s the reason I call the label Curious Music,” he says. “I want the music to create a curiosity within the listener, as happened to me when I was 12 years old. It lit a fire in my brain and in my heart. I want to make sure that all those things are there and that for whatever level the listener wants to engage in, it’s there for them.”