Sometimes the thing that changes your life shows up while you’re kneeling in the dirt, thousands of miles from home, doing something that has nothing to do with your future. For Dave Curl, that moment came during a volunteer stay as a gardener on the Big Island of Hawaii. He’d been writing and performing music for years by then, but Hawaii was where the decision hardened into something real. Leaving home, it turned out, was how he figured out what he wanted to do once he got back.
That instinct, following a feeling until it turns into a song, runs through everything Curl has made since. He’s a Swiss singer-songwriter with English-Australian roots, born and raised in Switzerland, and for more than twenty years he’s been turning ordinary moments into music. Train rides. Coffee shops. Chance encounters with strangers he’ll probably never see again. His songs have been streamed over 2 million times on Spotify and placed in more than 2,000 playlists, numbers he admits still catch him off guard when he checks.
The live experience came the hard way, one room at a time. Curl has played more than 200 shows as a solo act and with his band, and the range is genuinely all over the map. Living-room concerts on someone’s couch. Weddings. Birthday parties. Then, on the other end, headline slots at summer festivals. Playing that many rooms of that many sizes teaches you things a studio never will, mostly how to read a crowd and roll with whatever the night throws at you. His storytelling and improvisational instincts got sharpened in front of actual people rather than a click track.
His recorded catalogue tells the story of an artist who keeps moving. The 2021 debut album, Introducing, gathered his earlier songs into one place, including an acoustic take on “These Days,” and gave listeners a first real look at his songwriting. It landed well and built him a loyal early following. Then came a turn toward darker material. The 2022 EP Slave To Instinct dug into obsession, false friends, the uglier corners of the internet, and gender identity, intimate songs that also held a mirror up to the world around them. The title track picked up airplay on independent radio in Germany and beyond, and Curl backed the release with 20 shows alongside his band, including a memorable night at Kulturkoller Club in Winterthur.
He didn’t sit still after that. In November 2022 came “Angel,” the lead single from his second EP, Hold Me Close, which arrived at the end of August 2023. It’s a folk-pop song about a train journey on a dark November evening and an encounter nobody saw coming, the kind of thing built for travelers and dreamers. He opened 2023 with what remains his most popular track, “Serenity,” a personal song about letting go of someone you love. The video got picked up again by Stereohearts R&B, and the song is probably the clearest example of what people mean when they call his writing emotionally driven. It’s not trying to be clever. It just sits with the feeling and lets you sit there too.
Curl’s sound is folk-pop-rock with an alternative edge that keeps it from getting too smooth, too finished. That edge matters. It’s the thing that stops the pretty parts from tipping into background music. And he’s never limited himself to just the audio. He’s collaborated with contemporary dancers and shot music videos in places most people wouldn’t think to haul a guitar, including a medieval watchtower on the cliffs of Portugal. Dragging his songs into strange, cinematic locations has become part of how he works.
Which brings us to what’s next. “Julia,” out August 12, is an acoustic dream-pop single, and it’s a softer, floatier thing than his earlier material. Heart more openly on the sleeve. It came out of a chance meeting at a surf camp in Portugal, and it’s threaded with an idea Curl borrowed from The Little Prince, that what matters most can only be seen with the heart. The song leans on peaceful guitar, a bass line that keeps things moving underneath, and vocals that don’t reach for anything they don’t need. Julia’s in the waters, floating on a summer’s breeze, a memory of a moment that stuck around long after the moment itself was gone.
The official lyric video matches the mood. Filmed in Fuerteventura, Spain, it’s a slow, cinematic piece of warm earth tones and pale blue skies, drone footage tracing volcanic ridges while Curl plays alone on rocky overlooks, small against a huge landscape. Fades, dissolves, double exposures that blur him into the scenery. It’s dreamy on purpose.
What holds all of this together isn’t a strategy. It’s a way of paying attention. Over twenty years, Curl has built a catalogue one small, sincere moment at a time, without chasing whatever was loud that year. “Julia” is another entry in that logic, a song written for the right reasons rather than the algorithm.
You can find his music, videos, and booking details at davecurl.com, pick up merch at his store, and follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. “Julia” is out August 12, and you can pre-save it now.
Whatever pulled Curl toward music in that Hawaiian garden all those years ago clearly hasn’t let go, and going by this one, it isn’t planning to.
