! UPCOMING EVENTS!
Saturday October 3 - NOVOTVAR FESTIVAL, Bratislava, Slovakia
Conversation with Miloš Hroch
Time: 5pm
Location: V-klub
Free and open to the public
Tuesday October 20 - ROCK AND ROLL BOOK CLUB, Walthamstow, London
Conversation with Daniel Avery + Kitty Empire
Time: 6.30pm
Location: Walthamstow Trade Hall
Wednesday October 21 - TROPICALL RECORDS, Bruxelles, Belgium
Conversation with Simon Taylor
Time: 7pm
Location: Rue Haute 235, 1000
Friday October 23 - BORDERKITCHEN, Den Haag, Nederlands
Conversation with Lee Brackstone
Time: 8pm
Location: BorderKitchen, Kerkstraat 13
Tickets
A MEDLEY OF REVIEWS + READER REACTIONS
"A history of the music twinned with an account of the music press that covered it. That slight dip into autobiography spurs grander questions about what the point of music and music criticism is... His statement on what all that work ultimately means is significant to me. Like Harold Bloom or David Thomson – the opinions are less valuable than the sheer enthusiasm with which they are expressed. A brilliant critic has the authority and verve to move you to try something you haven’t heard of before just through the power of their words." - Ilia, Goodreads
"Both eulogy and manifesto, Still in a Dream is an enthralling, nostalgic meditation on formative, lost-in-music moments and an eloquent, enduring argument for an art of bliss and bewilderment" - - Declan Long, ArtReview
"An insightful history, mixed with fond memoires of writing for Melody Maker, one of the weekly "inkies" in the UK's exuberantly opinionated music press" ― Financial Times, Best Books of the Summer
"What a fantastic book this is! It is, I think, the finest work by the best living music writer." - Martin Raybould, Goodreads
"An absolutely sublime lovesong to the era, could read over and over" - Jazmine, Goodreads
"A pleasure to read!" - Iggy Pop Barker, amazon.co.uk
"Despite being 464 pages, it breezed by... It might be the most brisk, easy read of any of his books, and I enjoyed it immensely" - Fast and Bulbous blog
"Surprised even myself by how much I enjoyed and devoured this book. Just loved it... Over 400 pages and I wished it was longer" - Robert, Goodreads
"I read this in two days flat: that's how much I enjoyed it.... It is more personal than his other books, but without being self-indulgent." - William, Goodreads
"A perfect accompaniment to Rip It Up and Start Again. Thank you Simon for bringing back so many memories" -- Bookends (Amazon.co.uk reviewer)
"I've never dropped everything so fast to read a book immediately after receiving my pre-order.... It met my sky-high expectations" - Richard Balmer (Goodreads)
"These years clearly have much fondness attached to them from him which makes this a joy to read." - Aaron Hodgetts (Goodreads)
"Reynolds is a great writer. Many visceral, haptic descriptions of music that made me immediately put the book down and look up whatever song he was waxing lyrical about.... A lot of this reads like an impassioned plea for the value of criticism " - Luke McCarthy (Goodreads)
"A very fun and approachable writer " - Ben Yaxley, Goodreads
"I have never gone to the bookstore and bought a book as fast in my life" - Jo, Goodreads
"Was incredible and Simon Reynolds definitely succeeded in his explicit aim of giving me a retroactive high through the rich history of rock with memorable chapters on shoegaze and dream pop... great great account of the reinvention of rock through Reynolds’s own meditations on his life and journey as a music journalist" - - Yağmur, Goodreads
"Still in a Dream is at times dizzying non-fiction about the most wonderful and dreamy music that was created in the alternative rock era 30–40 years ago.... You also have to dig out old LPs, CDs, seven-inches and maxi singles, not least Youtube videos, to get this music straight into your veins again. Thus, a very inspiring book." - Audun Vinger, DNHelg
"One of the finest music books of the year" - Jonathan Wright, Classic Pop
"Highly enjoyable blend of memoir, history, anthology. Reynolds never really fails."- Stagger Lee, Goodreads
"A brilliant, bittersweet chronicle of what happens when six-string romanticism finally hits its sonic end of the road and has nowhere left to go but pure noise."- Ilya Miller, Goodreads
"Reynold's prose is as sharp as ever, and his connections to the milieus and awkward network of slackers is heartfelt and never crosses over into sappy territory." - Maldini Damas, Goodreads
"Although with Energy Flash, Rip it up and Start Again, and Shock and Awe he's set impossibly high standards, this might be his masterpiece" - Ingram, Amazon.co.uk
"Simon Reynolds is the kind of music writer who makes you want to rush out and listen to a hundred bands you have either never heard of or heard of / meant to check out / never got round to.... Still in a Dream is as entertaining, informative and combative as a night out with your gig going buddies." - Bookmunch
"Simon Reynolds, you have outdone yourself"- James Marples, Instagram
"A masterwork" ― Neil Mason, Moonbuilding, Book of the Week
"Still in a Dream acts beautifully as a thorough, thoughtful examination of the many featured bands and their music, as an encapsulation of the societies in which they emerged, and as a memoir of the formative years of Reynolds' adult life" -- David Pollock ― Record Collector
"His writing is passionate. . . it's a thrill ride. If you weren't there, you'll wish you had been" - Uncut
"It’s an extraordinarily detailed work, nostalgia for a pre-Internet age. It will be of interest to anybody interested in the music of the period" - No More Workhorse
"A masterful cultural and social archaeology"- Richard Imrich, Fullmoon
"Pretty good" - Kieran Press-Reynolds, GQ
Spanish translation from Caja Negra Editora - 2027
Italian translation from Minimum Fax - 2027
French translation from Audimat - 2028
ENDORSEMENTS
Endorsement for the German edition on Ventil Verlag
"Simon was there, going to the shows and talking to the bands who were making the music we all loved. Thank God someone thought to write about it“ - J. Mascis
“Like a new release from one of my favorite artists, I always look forward to a new book from Simon Reynolds. More than a music critic, Simon analyzes musical developments with an eye on the larger social and historical context that produces it.”- Dean Wareham
^^^^^^^^^
"Still in a Dream is more than just a celebration of some enduringly wonderful music - it's a great book full stop, Reynolds' best yet. Bringing together the sugar hiccup enthusiasms of his music press youth with the harsh wisdom of his extremely online old age, it covers everything from the sensual sublimity of the Cocteau Twins to Big Black and the genesis of edgelordism, from the little undergrounds of C86 and shoegaze to the pyrrhic overground victories of Grunge and Britpop. It's warm, funny, sometimes startlingly honest, and a very timely reminder that 'withdrawal in disgust is not the same thing as apathy'"
- Owen Hatherley, author of Militant Modernism and The Alienation Effect
"Still in a Dream is as important a work of art as any of the records that inspired it. Simon Reynold's erudition and judgement is at the service of the music he so passionately loves, his words meeting the songs on an equal footing thanks to an innate lack of ego which allows his insights to float amidst the notes in an ether of sonic luminosity"
- Tariq Goddard, founder of Repeater Books and author High John the Conqueror
'Much like the melodies of the music itself, this book feels like a story which has been waiting to burst out and shine for an eternity. Every band detail is fascinating but the real joy lies in Reynolds being entirely enraptured by a scene, the tales of someone blissfully caught in the heart of a storm'
- Daniel Avery, deejay and producer
HIGHLIGHTS FROM EARLIER COVERAGE
Interview for Rock N Roll Book Club Music Maps podcast
FURTHER READING + LISTENING + WATCHING
Still In A Dream Footnotes
Chapter by chapter footnotes + bonus material will start going up in February. In the mean time, check out these early posts - The Lost Epigraphs and Lodestar Quotations - and look out for an Auto-Interview in the next month or so.
Instagram.com/simonreynoldswriter/ for the latest news
Baker's Dozen on Reinvention of the Guitar at The Quietus - with a YouTube playlist to accompany
Still In A Dream YouTube playlist
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