Nick is the author of 'I Found My Friends: the Oral History of Nirvana' (St Martins Griffin) and 'Cobain On Cobain: Interviews and Encounters' (Chicago Review Press - February 2016). He lives in Bristol.
Who says there are no good political songs anymore? When Okkultokrati vocalist Black Qvisling sardonically sneers “World peace!” on the opening track of Raspberry Dawn it [...]
With Orbital Planes & Passenger Trains Vol.1 Serein – a label based in Wales and specialising in ambient electronica – have provided a masterclass in what the [...]
The first minute of Hypnopazūzu – the duo of producer Youth and Current 93’s David Tibet – suggests merely Tibet’s diverse, yet mid-paced psychedelia hardwired with [...]
Electronica regularly comes with all the surprise of flat-pack furniture; often feeling layered and constructed rather than imagined and discovered (a consequence of machine [...]
Norman Westberg made his name as Swans’ premier guitar sorcerer and has, on occasion, lent his talents to other outfits but it is only recently that he has channelled his [...]
Knowledge is cumulative; it’s impossible to unlearn once absorbed. I didn’t hear a song by Elliott Smith until sometime after he left the planet in October 2003 and I [...]
You can’t eat inspiration. Music demands people who feel it is of sufficient value to be worth paying for. With many now deeming Spotify’s $0.008 per play a fair exchange [...]
Melvins’ Basses Loaded is a pile-up on the motorway of music – Christ, such a mess of broken machinery and bloodied shreds. The album concept involved collaborations [...]
Huddersfield, Christmas Day, 1977. The national firemen’s strike hit its ninth week. The Sex Pistols – in the midst of the media witch hunt portraying them as the evil [...]
It’s far harder to be a living legend than a dead one. Metallica’s run of four albums between 1983 and 1988 defined a new sub-genre – thrash – while reinvigorating [...]