Patrick Clarke

Deputy Editor at The Quietus, Author of 'Bedsit Land', Freelance Journalist for hire

United Kingdom

A 30-year-old London-based writer with Liverpudlian roots, I'm the deputy editor at Europe's largest independent culture website The Quietus, and a freelance journalist with bylines for The Guardian, BBC, NME, Rolling Stone, N By Norwegian, Marvin, Yes&No, Metro and DIY, among many others.

My first book, Bedsit Land: The Strange Worlds Of Soft Cell, was published in 2024 by the Manchester University Press. My next book, concerning radical folk music, will be published in 2026.

I've also written biographies for artists signed to labels like Rough Trade, 4AD, Domino, PIAS and Heavenly, and am a corporate copywriter for hire.

In addition, I'm more than happy to offer free advice and mentorship to any aspiring culture writers and journalists to the best of my abilities - don't hesitate to get in touch.

I specialise in (although am by no means limited to) art, culture, politics and opinion. Commission me!

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Portfolio
DIY Magazine
11/08/2023
The Magic Circle: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (Cover Feature)

No one does it quite like King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: a group of freaky sonic adventurers who’ve moulded success into their own shape and become arguably the biggest cult band on the planet. On 25th (!) album ‘The Silver Cord’, they’re adding yet more unexpected strings to their already-bulging bow.

Ralph Magazine
07/01/2024
Why Bowie, Bambaataa, and Belleville Three Bow to Japan

J-pop is riding high in the Western music charts, but when you think about it, Japanese music has been heavily influencing the entire worlds of rock n roll, hip-hop and dance for decades. The Quietus' Patrick Clarke investigates.

The Quietus
09/27/2023
Surface Level Best: The Darkness' Permission To Land... Again

On the release of a 20th anniversary boxset celebrating The Darkness' extravagant debut album, Patrick Clarke explores a band who married daftness and dedication, found a brilliance in the superficial, and for whom flamboyance was inherent, not an affectation

The Quietus
04/01/2024
Sound Bath Loud: An Interview With Big Brave

Having reached a peak of heavy music on last year’s Nature Morte, Montreal’s Big Brave speak to Patrick Clarke about embracing the intensity of quietness on new album A Chaos Of Flowers, and how taking lyrical influence from long-dead poets provided deep political resonance

DIY
11/07/2022
Heavy Is The Heart: Young Fathers (Cover Feature)

Young Fathers stand as one of the most creative, boundaryless bands of their generation. Now, with fourth LP 'Heavy Heavy', they're channelling it into a record that puts human connection at the fore

The Quietus
02/08/2023
The Sea, The Sea: An Interview With Lankum

In their first interview about their fourth album False Lankum, Ian and Daragh Lynch, Radie Peat and Cormac Mac Diarmada speak to Patrick Clarke about Lankum's ever-intensifying extremities, transcendence through music, and their relationship to folk tradition

The Quietus
06/28/2022
Perfect Imperfection: Kendrick Lamar Live At Glastonbury

Kendrick Lamar might not be our saviour, but his headline slot at Glastonbury 2022 is a staggering demonstration of how an embrace of complexity and contradiction can make for an extremely powerful live performance

the Guardian
07/15/2022
The Prodigy review - tireless electro-punks do Keith Flint proud

n air raid siren sounds and bass starts hammering through the subwoofers with convulsive power. The Prodigy arrive on stage and vocalist Maxim clambers atop a speaker stack where he stands statuesque, bathed in strobes. The opening riff of Breathe begins as live guitarist Rob Holliday, in sleeveless leather, starts slinging his instrument around like an out-of-control chainsaw.

Rough Trade
01/01/2022
Artist Biography: caroline

The official biography for caroline's much anticipated debut album, by Patrick Clarke

The Quietus
09/13/2022
Stay Vigilant: The Mars Volta Interviewed

As they return with their first album in a decade, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala speak to Patrick Clarke about radical reinvention, rage and their roots

The Quietus
01/11/2022
Over The Edge: An Interview With Sea Power

As the band prepare for the release of new album Everything Was Forever, Sea Power's Jan Scott Wilkinson discusses the influence of his "kooky but endearing" family, dropping 'British' from the band's name, and the pros and cons of chaos

The Quietus
03/22/2021
Maximum Intensity: An Interview With The Armed

Patrick Clarke speaks to a member of notorious Detroit hardcore collective The Armed to discuss the band's cult-like following, how they underwent gruelling bodybuilding diet plans for the sake of art, and how they hope to re-draw the boundaries of hardcore music with new album ULTRAPOP

Marvin
12/01/2021
British Rockers The Vaccines Talk Fifth Record "Back in Love City"

Music Words by Patrick Clarke Photography by Tom Oxley The scene is El Paso airport, the year is 2019. British rockers The Vaccines have just wrapped up sessions for their bold fifth record, Back In Love City, a joyous, intense and emotional fortnight spent immersed in the Texan desert before going their separate ways around the world.

Heavenly Recordings
05/29/2021
Artist Biography: audiobooks

The official biography for audiobooks' forthcoming album 'Astro Tough', by Patrick Clarke

The Quietus
06/24/2021
Life Cycles: An Interview With caroline

New Rough Trade signings caroline speak to Patrick Clarke about how they went from roots in choral music, Appalachian folk and post-punk to creating extraordinarily atmospheric longform pieces

DIY Magazine
Streets Ahead: Mike Skinner

When Mike Skinner reunited The Streets, he could've cashed his cheque and quit. Instead, he's got a mixtape, album and film on the way. We meet the certified legend who's still pushing things forward. "I don't really hang out anywhere these days, to be honest," Mike Skinner deadpans as he sits, a little restlessly, in a busy, hipsterfied Brick Lane coffee shop.

The Quietus
01/13/2021
Heavy Is The Head: Divide And Dissolve Interviewed

Heavy duo Divide And Dissolve aim to destroy white supremacy through overwhelmingly intense music. They speak to Patrick Clarke about ideology, Indigineity, and inevitable backlash

NME
09/13/2020
Toots Hibbert, 1942 - 2020: the NME obituary

Toots And The Maytals were not just one of reggae's pioneers; they essentially gave the genre its name. Their 1968 single 'Do The Reggay' is widely credited with popularising the term worldwide.

The Quietus
10/07/2019
Wonderland: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' 'Ghosteen' Reviewed

In the thirtieth entry of 'The Red Hand Files', where Nick Cave answers questions from his fans, he responded to an enquiry as to how his wife Susie was doing, four years after the couple's teenage son was killed in a tragic accident.

The Quietus
10/22/2020
An Audience With The King: Sharhabil Ahmed Interviewed

Sharhabil Ahmed, the pioneering Sudanese musician and subject of an essential new Habibi Funk compilation, speaks to Patrick Clarke about his long and storied career, from performing for Haile Selassie to being crowned The King of Sudanese Jazz.

The Quietus
05/13/2020
Get Physical: Perfume Genius Interviewed

On the cover of his fifth album as Perfume Genius, Mike Hadreas stands topless, his toned and rugged physique bathed in dramatic monochrome. In other takes from the shoot he's splayed over a Harley Davidson, or wielding a thick, heavy sledgehammer or a hunting knife, his face muddied with the dirt of hard, manly graft.

The Quietus
06/15/2020
The Strange World Of... Deerhoof

As they release their fifteenth album Future Teenage Cave Artists, Deerhoof take Patrick Clarke on a freewheeling ride through ten highlights from their career, from doing laundry halfway through a gig to the remote island school that set a ballet to their music

The Quietus
07/07/2020
Dedications: An Interview With Jeff Parker

All photos by Jim Newberry Jeff Parker's new album Suite For Max Brown (which placed yesterday at number five in tQ's top 100 albums of 2020 so far), is beautiful. A mixture of sample-based instrumental hip hop, masterly improvisational jazz and astonishingly deft songwriting, taken as a whole it skips from style to style so smoothly that it defies easy categorisation, instead creating something entirely its own.

NME
06/26/2020
Secret Machines on their long-awaited return and new album 'Awake In The Brain Chamber'

Secret Machines have returned with first new music in over a decade. Check out 'Talos' Corpse' below, along with our interview with frontman Brandon Curtis. The cult space-rock band band released three albums together before they split in 2010, a period in which they found fans in the likes of David Bowie, Muse and U2 as well as attracting much critical acclaim.

The Quietus
03/12/2020
Pure Reaction: Sinead O'Brien Interviewed

Photo by Zac Mahrouche Sinead O'Brien's first musical memory is of her mother's Ford Puma. "She'd drive us to school every day and the only tapes she had were The Beach Boys and Vivaldi," she says, sat calmly in a cranny of a hectic Soho pub.

The Quietus
05/15/2020
India Dreaming: Paul Purgas On The Birth Of Indian Electronic Music

This Sunday, musician Paul Purgas presents a documentary on the extraordinary and overlooked electronic music produced by the students of India's National Institute Of Design in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He speaks to Patrick Clarke about his discoveries

The Quietus
07/03/2020
After The Crash: An Interview With Sly & The Family Drone's Matt Cargill

With new album Walk It Dry premiering exclusively below, Sly & The Family Drone leader Matt Cargill tells Patrick Clarke about the traumatic road accident and subsequent recovery that preceded their formidable new record, and the challenges of experimental musicianship during a pandemic

The Quietus
04/03/2020
The Right Reasons: Dan Carey Of Speedy Wunderground Interviewed

Producer Dan Carey, whose Speedy Wunderground label launched the careers of Squid, Black Midi, Black Country, New Road and more speaks to Patrick Clarke. Plus, the premiere of the next entry in the label's new 'Quarantine Series', feat. Warmduscher's Clam Baker.

The Quietus
03/18/2020
Vanity Subjects: Baxter Dury Picks His 13 Favourite Albums

tQ finds Baxter Dury in his flat, the windows of its broad, expansive living room offering a calming view of the Thames and Hammersmith Bridge. He's a warm and mellow host, impeccable at small talk and blessed with a sharp, deadpan, often self-deprecating wit.

The Quietus
03/05/2020
Bring Your Whole Self: An Interview With Alabaster DePlume

Photos by Chris Almeida Alabaster DePlume blends in well among the pleasant clutter of the Total Refreshment Centre in Dalston, the beloved creative hub and studio space from which he's worked for the last five years.

The Quietus
06/10/2020
Dreams More Vivid Than Memories: The Silver Field Interviewed

Coral Rose has spent lockdown sifting through the 30 to 40 hours' worth of recordings she's amassed over the last few years. "I've been editing a lot more but writing a lot less," she says on the phone from her shared home in North London when we speak in April.

BBC Three
12/14/2018
Inside the mind of Kanye West

The rapper has hit the headlines almost as much for his mental health as his music this year, but what's really going on?

The Quietus
04/10/2018
Eric's, Probe And The Armadillo: The Story Of Liverpool Music, 1976-1988

Pink Industry live at Eric's On July 19 1984 The Mighty Wah! were the opening act on Top Of The Pops. They performed 'Come Back', then at number 28 amid a five-week stint in the Top 40, with bristling energy, a look of frenzy in their eyes and the kind of swagger imbued not just by a band, but by an entire city at its creative peak.

The Quietus
06/12/2017
Witch Hunts, Resurgence and Defiance: Heavy Metal In The Middle East

Twenty years on from the arrests of 100 Egyptian metal fans, across a series of interviews across the Middle East Patrick Clarke speaks to metal musicians about their defiance to keep the genre thriving, despite risks of imprisonment, torture, and in some cases, execution.

The Quietus
04/09/2019
Too Much Love: An Interview With Fat White Family

Photo by Duncan Stafford The narrative surrounding Fat White Family has usually concerned frontman Lias Saoudi and guitarist Saul Adamczewski. They have been considered the central creative partnership of the group, a flawed, frayed and fractious partnership, but central nonetheless.

The Quietus
01/17/2019
Toxic Concepts: An Interview With Deerhunter's Bradford Cox

I get the impression Bradford Cox is a little bit sick of being interviewed about the new Deerhunter record. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia and he's a night owl, so that makes it easier to organise a load of European phone interviews, but tQ is apparently quite far down the queue.

The Line of Best Fit
Pstereo Festival is a rich and varied delight in the heart of one of Europe's most beautiful cities

For a historic town of less than 200,000 people, Trondheim has a musical calendar that puts cities twenty times its size to shame. Pstereo sits alongside the SXSW-esque Trondheim Calling in February, Trondheim Jazz Festival and the grassroots one-dayer Bakkefestivalen in May, Trondheim Rocks in June (which this year featured Iron Maiden), while the century-old cultural institution UKA (Norway's biggest festival) takes over the whole of October every second year.

The Quietus
01/29/2019
LIVE REPORT: Black Midi At Brixton Windmill

Photo by the author It's one of those days where everything's going right, apart from a rail replacement bus from Falmouth. It gets me to Truro just in time for my connection to Plymouth, and the strange man who keeps staring at me and waggling a bottle of wine with a grin gets off before I change onto the final train to London.

The Quietus
03/14/2019
The Strange World Of... Sublime Frequencies

Ahead of a night dedicated to the label as part of Berlin's Find The File festival, Alan Bishop, one of the founders of Sublime Frequencies, picks ten points of entry into the crucial label's extraordinary back catalogue of sounds from across the globe

The Quietus
04/26/2018
No, Streaming Services Are Not 'Saving The Music Industry'

Recent reports that streaming is now the 'biggest money-maker' for the music biz have prompted hyperbolic claims that Spotify and co have 'saved the music industry'. In reality, this could not be further from the truth.

The Quietus
03/04/2019
Mexican Excellence: Carnaval De Bahidorá Reviewed

Photo by Andrea Gunar That the team behind Carnaval De Bahidorá got their hands on Las Estacas is something of a miracle. It is not just a beautiful site, in the way that Green Man or Festival No.6 are set in beautiful sites, it is a staggeringly pretty place.

The Quietus
02/27/2019
"I Enjoy Silence!": Michael Rother's 13 Favourite Albums

With a show at London's Under The Bridge on 5 April, Michael Rother of Neu!, Harmonia, and a newly-boxsetted solo career takes Patrick Clarke through his life in 13 records, from Little Richard to Fuck Buttons, even though he doesn't really listen to music any more

Technikart Magazine
09/04/2017
The KLF In Liverpool (French Language)

Le 23 Août dernier, les mythiques The KLF revenaient après un silence de 23 ans avec un happening horsnome. S'aggisait-il d'un come-back foireux? D'un rite païen? Ou de la plus géniale entourloupe de l'histoire de la pop? Notre reporter y était...

The Quietus
02/19/2018
Melancholy Optimism: Manic Street Preachers Interviewed

The Manic Street Preachers thought they might never make another album again, then along came Resistance Is Futile. Patrick Clarke meets Nicky Wire to discuss a record that's either the start of a great new era or the end of it all

The Quietus
10/03/2017
Transforming, Vibrating: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Reviewed

All photos by Rowan Allen The O2 Arena is the venue for the last of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' five UK dates. Such has the reception been to his sets across the rest of the country by the time it comes round - breathless, clamouring effusions of praise, "the best show I've ever seen him do" etc.

The Quietus
02/27/2018
But You Didn't: Confidence Man Interviewed

When Confidence Man arrived last year, surfing a tidal wave of glistening bangers, it was as if they were a band conjured in some kind of perfect-pop laboratory. They are fronted by Sugar Bones, a muscular hunk in hotpants, and Janet Planet, a woman in a custom baby-doll dress, who perform manic synchronised dances on stage, and backed by two mysterious musicians in black veils (Clarence McGuffrie and Reggie Goodchild).

The Line of Best Fit
Dhani Harrison: Positively Brainwashed

It's taken over 15 years of constant work for Harrison to release an album that's truly and solely his own, however and IN // PARALLEL is be his debut LP as simply 'Dhani Harrison'.

Gigwise
02/18/2018
End Come Too Soon: Wild Beasts' last ever show reviewed

There have been many farewells from the more interesting stalwarts of the last decade of the UK indie scene of late, many of whom have played a farewell tour like Wild Beasts'. Take The Maccabees, for example, who ended their run with three consecutive dates at Alexandra Palace.

The Quietus
04/11/2017
Amended Legacy: The Kinks' Ray Davies Interviewed

As Ray Davies prepares for the launch of the next phase of his colossal Americana project, Patrick Clarke speaks to the Kinks frontman on America, Britain, and why he's never voted.