From time to time, Destroy//Exist shines a light on an album which has profoundly influenced the music we value the most. D//E Select serves as a commendatory showcase, offering the chance to spotlight those favorites which deserve continual recognition.
If Two Worlds Kiss, the 1987 debut album from Pink Turns Blue, feels like a dark, romantic slide into post punk melancholy, but with just enough accessibility blended in to keep it emotionally gripping rather than distant. Born out of Berlin’s divided backdrop and the cold pulse of Europe’s underground music scene in the eighties, the band arrived with a record that immediately placed them among the most memorable voices in continental post punk.
The album blends gloomy elegance with a kind of controlled emotional intensity, sitting comfortably next to earlier icons like The Cure, Bauhaus, and early New Order. It's the start of a beautiful path that feels soaked in longing, absence, and political grayness, yet all real and deeply affecting.
Across the album's ten tracks, the guitars shimmer with icy reverb, the bass often takes center stage, and the synths fill in the gaps quietly but purposefully, offering tiny hints of warmth through an otherwise restrained sonic palette. Mic Jogwer’s vocals fall between surrender and quiet hope, delivered with a directness that feels experiential rather than melodramatic.
Songs like the opener I Coldly Stare Out and Missing You showcase the band’s subtle, almost graceful approach to sadness, while After All stands out as one of their most poignant pieces. Walking on Both Sides shows how they can blend bleak beauty with something almost catchy without banishing the magic.
There’s something subtly resistant about If Two Worlds Kiss. It is a cohesive work that maintains its mood throughout, without attempting to explode into a huge cathartic moment. Instead, it just exists in its own emotional space, and often feels like wandering through the mist where everything is obscured, yet, strangely dazzling.
Decades later, the album still feels like a companion to anyone who understands that sadness can be beautiful, that misery has its own charm, and that expectation and despair sometimes walk in parallel harmony.
ZR