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Loyalty Song: Peter Doherty Gives His Audience All His Love
May 2023 - Popmatters Article November 15, 2024 'In a Bristol performance, the Libertine’s Peter Doherty gives an impressive reminder that he’s someone whose song craft and sheer... Read more -
We Are Urusei Yatsura: The Oral History
April 2023 - Popmatters Article November 15, 2024 'Scottish indie rockers Urusei Yatsura describe their rise from local heroes to John Peel favorites and a debut album setting... Read more -
‘The Batman’ Is Just Another Incel Fantasy of Entitlement
March 2022 - Popmatters Review November 15, 2024 'Matt Reeves’ meandering faux-profound take on Batman spends its over-long runtime telling women to shut up and do as they’re... Read more -
Filling Hearts With Diamonds: An Interview With Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix of Liturgy
2023 Popmatters Interview June 6, 2023 Exemplified by the new album 93696, Liturgy have moved ever further out into space all their own, tethered only by... Read more
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Joe Meek And The Blue Men See The Future On Essential Outtake Compilation
2023 Popmatters 10" EP Review June 6, 2023 Joe Meek and the Blue Men’s I Hear a New World Sessions delves into Meek’s famed archive and delivers on... Read more -
Liturgy's 939696 Delivers Ecstasy, Physicality and Intellectual Endeavor
2023 Review of Liturgy's New Album 939696 June 6, 2023 Already noted for their determination to challenge themselves and their listeners, Liturgy’s 93696 shows them refusing to settle for less... Read more -
No Sex Please, We're British
Coil's Subversively Overt Homosexuality June 6, 2023 An excerpted and revamped piece taken from the introduction to Coil: Everything Keeps Dissolving. Read more -
Swans Sacrifice & Transcendence Review
(French Edition- Obskure) June 6, 2023 https://www.obskure.com/nick-soulsby-swans-sacrifice-et-transcendance-l-histoire-orale-camion-blanc-2023.html Read more
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You Might Dwell On It: Conversations With Coil
Book Excerpt Published in The Quietus June 6, 2023 Author Nick Soulsby recently compiled a near-exhaustive volume of Coil interviews for Strange Attractor, Everything Keeps Dissolving. Here he outlines... Read more -
In Conversation with Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat
2021 Arab Strap Week PopMatters Interview March 11, 2021 'Taking a break from the pleasures of domesticity and enforced confinement, the ever-charming and loquacious Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap... Read more -
In Conversation with Arab Strap's Malcolm Middleton
2021 Arab Strap Week PopMatters Interview March 4, 2021 'On the eve of Arab Strap’s latest album, PopMatters caught up with the erudite and thoughtful Malcolm Middleton to consider... Read more -
The Videography of Arab Strap in 10 Short Films
2021 Arab Strap Week PopMatters Article March 2, 2021 'Arab Strap produce a concise video accompaniment to their music and art, all on equally compact indie budgets. While the... Read more
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The 10 Key Albums of Arab Strap
2021 Arab Strap Week PopMatters Article March 1, 2021 'PopMatters takes a rapid-fire tour of the ten key releases that every Arab Strap fan should have in hand' Read more -
The Artwork of Arab Strap
2021 Arab Strap Week PopMatters Article February 26, 2021 'The distinct identity of Arab Strap, as an instrumental and lyrical unit, is matched by the visual aspect. The band’s... Read more -
PopMatters Excerpt from Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over
2020 PopMatters Article January 1, 2021 'An accompaniment to Beth B's documentary of the same name, Nick Soulsby's book is the first comprehensive overview of Lunch's... Read more -
John Carpenter on the Pleasure of Making Horror Film Soundtracks
2021 PopMatters Interview November 8, 2020 'The hallowed B-movie director John Carpenter says making film scores with Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies comes naturally. But he... Read more
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Black Sabbath: There’s No Rock ‘n’ Roll in Reading the Classics
2020 Trebuchet Article July 13, 2020 'If you missed Black Sabbath in their heyday, there’s no reason to go back to the original songs or doff... Read more -
Always-On, All-the-Time: COVID in the World of 24/7 News
2020 Trebuchet Article July 1, 2020 'Two decades into a fundamentally new media environment, we’re still discovering the impact of the Internet on the information we... Read more -
Nicki Minaj is the Greatest Rapper of the Decade Bar None
2020 PopMatters Article May 11, 2020 '2020 and it's finally time to acknowledge Nicki Minaj's right to G.O.A.T. status, as the best female rapper AND the... Read more -
COVID-19 Means Living Life in Two Minds at Once
2020 PopMatters Article March 23, 2020 'COVID-19 has created a day-by-day experience in which we realize there are no perfect answers, and every moment exists as... Read more
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Life in the Time of Coronavirus is No Time for False Dichotomies
2020 PopMatters Article March 23, 2020 'How unsettling and unnerving it is during these times of coronavirus, when our rational intellect suggests one set of answers,... Read more -
The Underestimated Resilience of Peace and Modern Society
2020 PopMatters Article March 23, 2020 'While we feast on fictionalized (and real) tales of murder and awfulness, we really just want to live our lives... Read more -
What Will Come? COVID-19 and the Politics of Economic Depression
2020 PopMatters Article March 23, 2020 'The financial crash of 2008-2010 reemphasized that traumatic economic shifts drive political change, so what might we imagine — or... Read more -
Nick Soulsby Reads From His Oral History "Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence"
2020 PopMatters Video January 1, 2020 'Swans' story is a story of artistic near-death, defiance, and resurrection. This excerpt brings forth the band's challenges during the... Read more
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Tyranny of the Beat Pt. II
2018 Trebuchet Article October 28, 2018 'Imagine how free and relieved we might feel if, just for a time, we could lose the ticking clock and... Read more -
The Tyranny of the Beat Pt. I
2018 Trebuchet Article October 24, 2018 'Much is made of the speed of musical evolution, the idea that the walls have exploded and we can see... Read more -
Nick Soulsby Interviews Michael Gira for Clash Magazine
2016 Clash Interview January 1, 2018 'The eternal process of becoming: Swans' Michael Gira' Read more -
Swans Talk Pushing Their Bodies, Live Performance To Dangerous Limits
2018 Revolver Article January 1, 2018 'Michael Gira and influential experimental band recount NYC show at which they'd 'been trying to die' in exclusive excerpt from... Read more
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The Story Of Swans By Those Who Lived To Tell
2018 PopMatters Article January 1, 2018 'Nick Soulsby's oral history of Swans digs deep in and around the trenches of Michael Gira's twisted musical world.' Read more -
Dälek Interview for Clash Music
July 2017 Clash Music Review July 21, 2017 It's The Heaviness, The Layers, The Noise: Dälek 'Will Brooks, AKA Dälek , is — counter to the weight of... Read more -
Arto Lindsay Interview for Clash Music
May 2017 Words & Guitars Review May 17, 2017 Caution, Madame! Back And Forth With Arto Lindsay 'By the age of 30, Arto Lindsay had already created some of... Read more -
The Bug / Earth Interview for Clash Music
May 2017 Clash Music Review May 1, 2017 City Of Fallen Angels: The Bug vs. Earth 'In one of recent years’ more surprising collaborations, Kevin Martin (AKA The... Read more
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Thurston Moore Interview for Clash Music
May 2017 Clash Music Review May 1, 2017 Ecstatic Noise: Thurston Moore Interviewed 'Thurston Moore has recorded a lot of music. Most obviously – and prominently – there... Read more -
Much Too Much: the Curse of the Double Album
2017 Words And Guitars Article February 20, 2017 'Musicians – instead of creating, roughly, eight to ten songs for a release – now found themselves nudging song lengths... Read more -
Nick Soulsby's Playlist for Cobain On Cobain
Large Hearted Boy Playlist Selection January 1, 2017 'In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently... Read more -
In Conversation: Dumb Numbers’ Adam Harding
2016 Words And Guitars Interview November 1, 2016 'In August, Dumb Numbers (AKA Adam Harding And Friends) dropped their second album, II. A warm blur of genres and... Read more
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Oasis’ ‘Be Here Now’: What Happens When You Run Out Of Dreams?
2016 Words And Guitars Article October 17, 2016 'I feel nothing but affection for the Oasis of 1993-1997. It was refreshing, at the time, to hear songs of... Read more -
Leave those kids alone: the perils of performance and parenthood
2016 Words And Guitars Article July 5, 2016 'Children should be exposed to music at an early age. My nephew, a budding toddler, is a regular guest at... Read more -
J’Accuse Jesse Hughes
2016 Words And Guitars Article May 26, 2016 '...his views are fundamentalist ideology and therefore impervious to rational debate, he explains that the absence of evidence supporting his... Read more -
In conversation: Steven James Adams
2016 Words And Guitars Interview April 16, 2016 'For those who haven’t caught the man’s work, let me do something I rarely do and make a blunt recommendation:... Read more
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In conversation: Tad Doyle on Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
2016 Words And Guitars Interview March 28, 2016 'Tad Doyle circa 2016 is a man with a hectic schedule. He's performing guitar and vocals with his band Brothers... Read more -
In Conversation: Kevin Moyer on Elliott Smith and ‘Heaven Adores You’
2016 Words And Guitars Interview March 11, 2016 'The soundtrack to Heaven Adores You, the acclaimed film about Elliott Smith, is soon to be released on vinyl. The... Read more -
Never Ever Gonna Get Old: on the passing of pop stars
2016 Words And Guitars Article January 17, 2016 'There’s an underlying mathematical truth to human life. At age 20 you most likely have your whole life to live... Read more -
Blank reGeneration: David Blanco interviewed
2015 Words And Guitars Article December 9, 2015 '...though the fire may move on, it never goes out. A short bus ride from Highbury & Islington lies Stoke... Read more
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Tape Me: Re-Considering Kurt Cobain’s Montage of Heck
2015 Words And Guitars Article November 15, 2015 'In the alternative universe posited, Kurt Cobain was a guy who churned out catchy three minute verse-chorus-verse pop songs with... Read more -
Scum Down Heavy: The Melvins interviewed
2015 Words And Guitars Interview October 21, 2015 'How much does King Buzzo hate where he grew up? THIS much!' Read more -
Smash It Up: Exploring The Riot City Blues
2015 Words And Guitars Article October 15, 2015 'The riot gig, the ultimate in audience participation, has a basic underlying predictability. A certain proportion of the audience identify... Read more -
Five Moving Passages From Nick Soulsby’s ‘The Oral History Of Nirvana’
2015 Spin Article January 1, 2015 'On March 31, Nick Soulsby will release his new book, I Found My Friends: The Oral History of Nirvana. While... Read more
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Hanging With Nirvana at Kurt's House in 1989
2015 CuePoint Article January 1, 2015 Hanmi Hubbard Interview with Nirvana First Printed in Cobain On Cobain Read more -
Inside the Final Days of Nirvana
2015 Esquire Article January 1, 2015 'An exclusive excerpt from a new book-length oral history of Nirvana, in which friends talk about the band's last tour,... Read more