Alex Niven

Borderlands: Alex Niven on Harry Lawson’s Stepney Western

At Newcastle Contemporary Art gallery, an exhibition featuring a new film by Harry Lawson plus archival photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine Franck, Chris Killip, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Tish Murtha and others, draws links between the fabled American West and England’s North-East

Cool Memories: Jam City Presents EFM

After a brief pastoral interlude, Jack Lathan returns to the urban nightscape with an album of wall-to-wall bangers, finds Alex Niven

Awkward Bastardry: How The Music Of The North-East Hits Different

With his new book *The North Will Rise Again* published this week by Bloomsbury, author Alex Niven asks why the music of England's north-east is so often overlooked compared to its southern or western neighbours

F**king Pop Classics: Alan McGee’s Favourite Albums

The former Creation Records, now 359 Music man charts his musical history from child of glam to record label boss with Alex Niven

Sheer Effortless Elan: Oasis’ Definitely Maybe Reissue Reviewed

Al Niven has a new 33 1/3 book coming out on Definitely Maybe, so who better to review the reissue of Oasis' 1994 debut? Plus, read an extract from the book at the foot of this feature

Damon Albarn

Everyday Robots

The Noise Of Art: Trevor Horn On ZTT’s 30th Birthday

Al Niven talks to Trevor Horn about three decades of Zang Tuum Tumb

Welcome To The New Age: 2014 & The New Utopian Pop

As we approach the mid-point of the decade, Alex Niven argues that pop music is losing its retromanic urge, and starting to look to the future

Chvrches

The Bones of What You Believe

Faintly Transcendental: On The Poetry Of Graham Foust

Scrutinising the influences, from time and place to Joy Division, and stylistic idiosyncrasies which together make up the work of this ambitious American poet, Alex Niven provides a guide for the Foust-uninitiated

2012: The Year The Establishment Didn’t Crumble

In the second of our Wreath Lectures, Alex Niven looks back over the strange year that was 2012, and asks why there hasn't been more of a kick against the "pink-faced farce" of our leaders... and hopes for better in 2013

Swans

The Seer

Dirty Projectors

Swing Lo Magellan

Martin Amis, Geezer-Prat, & His Unfortunate Clichés Of Britishness

With the release of cynical new novel Lionel Asbo: State Of England, argues Alex Niven, Martin Amis continues the patronising run of form that helped install the pernicious and cliché-ridden notion of 'Cool Britannia' and ultimately Boris and Dave's Big Society

The World Is Still Waiting: The Significance Of The Stone Roses Reunion

Those seeing the recent Roses reunion as either uplifting nostalgia or lad rock showing its true capitalist colours are missing the whole picture, says Alex Niven