An expanded edition of the classic exploration of the English
esoteric musical underground--with the first biography of Coil,
Current 93, and Nurse With Wound.
This newly expanded
edition of England's Hidden Reverse, the classic exploration
of the English esoteric musical underground that includes the first,
and only, biographies of Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound, is
based on exclusive interviews and unprecedented access to all three
bands' personal archives. Together, these genre-defying bands and
their circles represent the English underground in all its cultural,
artistic, and sexual variety. Over four decades, the three
intertwined groups have maintained a symbiotic, yet uneasy,
relationship with the mainstream of popular culture, even as their
music, beliefs, and practices have repelled them from it. Theirs was
a clandestine scene whose work accents the many occulted
peculiarities of Englishness that flow through generations of
outsiders, channeling personalities as diverse as Aleister Crowley,
Arthur Machen, Joe Orton, Shirley Collins, Björk, and Marc Almond.
The story of this Hidden Reverse has, necessarily, remained a secret.
Until now.
This new volume
contains almost 100 pages of extra material culled from Furfur, a
collection of interviews with musicians and artists whose careers
intersected with the bands', initially published alongside Strange
Attractor's first limited edition of the book.