NEGATIVA! The New Blockaders. The Noise of Art and Nothing - NICK SOULSBY
About this Event
Forensically detailed and beautifully written by Nick Soulsby, The New Blockaders: The Noise of Art and Nothing presents the story of The New Blockaders’ work from the groundbreaking 1982 LP Changez Les Blockeurs to their most recent Antibox.
Nick’s book is the most extensive consideration ever given to the evolution of noise music. The most comprehensive evaluation of any artist operating in the modern-day realm of experimental, avant-garde, industrial, power electronics and noise. A compelling tale of raw individuality, determination and endurance with no regard for financial reward or popularity. This is art. This is noise. This is the sight, sound and story of a powerful NOTHING.
A recording made in a garden shed in a small rural village north of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (in the far north of England) now stands as the recognised catalyst for the entire global phenomenon of noise music. You would be hard-pressed to name any noise artist who hasn’t, directly or indirectly, been influenced by the work of The New Blockaders or by their debut LP, Changez Les Blockeurs.
In this sweeping narrative, Nick Soulsby lays out the five decade-long journey of TNB and their vast influence over the development of noise which has seen them eulogised by key figures throughout the worldwide network of noisicians in Japan, America, Europe and beyond.
Accompanying the book, the two-CD compilation Collaberrations features a fearsome selection of TNB’s collaborative works spanning 1982-2026 with artists including Coil, Organum, Ferial Confine, Anomali, Vortex Campaign, Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, Raymond Dijkstra, Vomir, The Haters, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, irr. app. (ext.), Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Nobuo Yamada. There is also a DVD component comprehensively documenting live footage from every TNB performance for which film or video exists, including an unseen anti-film from 1982, and two performances by TNB’s shadowy extreme alter-ego Nihilist Assault Group.
Richard and Philip Rupenus’ refused any kind of public profile to the extent that fan theories and guesswork in the 1980s solidified into a belief common among many of the world’s best noise artists that the two brothers are not, in fact, real people; that the masks worn on stage and in photos conceal any number of other culprits who have moonlighted as TNB over the years. Few artists in music have retained such mystique and mystery while continuing to issue such an expansive sprawl of new work which extends to this present day.
With forewords by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), and Masami Akita (Merzbow) marking TNB’s transcendent level of respect and appreciation, Viva Negativa! traces their origins in the post-punk DIY cassette underground; their forging of connections to key artists in the nascent industrial and power electronics scenes — including Whitehouse, Coil, and Ramleh; the way in which their slim catalogue was beloved by Japan’s extreme music underground — including artists like Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Hijokaidan; then their resurrection in the golden age of noise in the 90s and early 2000s which saw them acquire well-deserved status as the founding fathers of the entire edifice of noise music.
Perhaps the world’s most uncompromising experimental group, TNB’s ethos of rejection, their blockade, their eternal NO exploded the self-seriousness of bourgeois art, music and culture. Using little more than a pile of scrap metal, barely functioning equipment, machine guts, broken gadgetry and coruscating feedback they blew a hole right through music into sound worlds beyond. This is the story of five decades of untrammelled, boundless creativity and the most important DIY outsider (anti-)art sonic terrorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Copies of Nick's book will be available at the Festival and there will be a dedicated book signing immediately after his event.
Limited to 400 copies, this beautiful volume is 416 pages, with full-colour printing throughout, on 130gsm art silk paper, board cover 350gsm silk board, featuring original photos of many of the incredible releases by TNB.
The book comes with a CD/DVD package of remix ‘collaberrations’ with TNB by Coil, Organum, Ferial Confine, Anomali, Vortex Campaign, Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, Raymond Dijkstra, Vomir, The Haters, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, irr. app. (ext.), Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Nobuo Yamada.
About Nick Soulsby:
...In February 2012 I read an advert seeking book proposals for one volume accounts of significant albums...Voice in my head said "you could do that," the other voice sneered, "yeah right...Prove it!" So I did. Whatever got in the way I just kept going and by that winter created my first published work: "Dark Slivers: Seeking Nirvana in the Shards of Incesticide" (Running Water Press, 2012) tackling Nirvana's much-overlooked Incesticide compilation.
Further work became the basis for "I Found My Friends: the Oral History of Nirvana" (St Martin's Press, 2015) built on the memories of 210 people from 170 bands who shared the stage at around three-quarters of the shows Nirvana ever performed. I was asked at that time to create "Cobain on Cobain: Interviews and Encounters" (Chicago Review Press, 2016), part of a series in which the best interviews by significant artists are compiled into single volumes for scholars, music studies, fans and those seeking to understand them. In the background I helped Soul Jazz Records compile the "No Seattle: Forgotten Sounds of the North West Grunge Era" compilation (and wrote the band histories and inlay) and then, for Dekema Records, prepared the liner notes for the expanded reissue of the Fire Ants' 1992 EP "Stripped".
Across 2016-2017, with the support and permission of Thurston Moore, I created the book "We Sing A New Language: The Oral Discography Of Thurston Moore" (Omnibus Press, 2017) - an account of his vast array of output created outside of the confines of Sonic Youth. Then I moved onto "SWANS: Sacrifice And Transcendence" (Jawbone Press, 2018) - the first volume ever to tackle the tale of Michael Gira's legendary band. My personal feeling is that a lot of my experience over these past years came together on this book, the ability to make pages electric, to craft people's voices and memories to make their voices sing, to draw a reader through a journey they can see in their mind's eye.
It was an honour to then be asked by filmmaker Beth B and genius creative artist Lydia Lunch to create a book to accompany the film they were making together. This is what led to Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over (Jawbone Press, 2020) released amid the first summer of the COVID pandemic. I spent the long months of lockdown creating a volume of rare, unreleased and lost interviews with the group COIL for the book Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations With Coil (Strange Attractor Press, 2022). I was also asked to do the liner notes to Urusei Yatsura's reissue of the album "We Are...", a personal favourite album, and to help compile their oral history as a limited edition zine.
Across 2022-2025, to my own surprise, I found myself writing the first comprehensive account of The New Blockaders, contenders for the title of 'the founders of noise music,' with the resulting volume — Viva Negativa! The New Blockaders And The Art Of Destruction due for release in summer 2026. I also created a history of the Centro Iberico anarchist centre and anarcho-punk music venue for PM Press, which came out in February 2026 as Born Of Struggle, Living In Hope: The Anarcho-Punk Lives Of The Centro Iberico 1971-1983. A brief account of the musical aspects of Centro Iberico was published in The Wire in July 2023.
What else to say? Well, hi, I'm Nick - nice to meet you. Work-wise, I lead a global team within a large IT advisory and consulting firm, looking after my team across three continents and six time zones. Back in the day, I did a History degree, then an MPhil in History, at Cambridge University. What feels most important to me is to only write about what I love and to do so in a way I love - to only write books that I want to see on my shelf and want to read. I have a normal job, a normal life - writing is what I do for pleasure and I hope I'll always stand on the right side of the line as someone drawing inspiration from the things I respect.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 9.92 to GBP 11.55
