Nick Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds) is a Canadian musician, composer and producer best known for starting and co-fronting the cult indie rock band The Unicorns when he was still a teenager. The band's first full length album 'Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?' was named one of the Top 10 Albums by Pitchfork in 2003, receiving critical praise from around the world. After only one year of touring, the band imploded on stage in Texas in 2004, due to internal friction. Thorburn immediately went on to form the band Islands, signing with Anti- Records and eventually releasing 5 full length studio albums and touring the world, with appearances at festivals as diverse as Coachella, Primavera Sound and La Route Du Rock. Over the years Thorburn has released more records, collaborating with various artists on projects like Mister Heavenly (with Honus Honus of Man Man), El-P, Human Highway, Reefer, and others.
Thorburn also composes music for film, television and radio, most recently scoring the theme and soundtrack for the new This American Life offshoot, Serial. This summer Thorburn re-united The Unicorns after ten years to re-issue their seminal album, opening five shows for Arcade Fire and closing out the POP Montreal festival.
His new album, City of Quartz, is out now, of which Pitchfork said "this is the closest Thorburn's post-Unicorns work has come to recreating that band's self-contained, fantastical sound world ... that uncanny balance of quirky and creepy remains."
Nick Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds) is a Canadian musician, composer and producer best known for starting and co-fronting the cult indie rock band The Unicorns when he was still a teenager. The band's first full length album 'Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?' was named one of the Top 10 Albums by Pitchfork in 2003, receiving critical praise from around the world. After only one year of touring, the band imploded on stage in Texas in 2004, due to internal friction. Thorburn immediately went on to form the band Islands, signing with Anti- Records and eventually releasing 5 full length studio albums and touring the world, with appearances at festivals as diverse as Coachella, Primavera Sound and La Route Du Rock. Over the years Thorburn has released more records, collaborating with various artists on projects like Mister Heavenly (with Honus Honus of Man Man), El-P, Human Highway, Reefer, and others.
Thorburn also composes music for film, television and radio, most recently scoring the theme and soundtrack for the new This American Life offshoot, Serial. This summer Thorburn re-united The Unicorns after ten years to re-issue their seminal album, opening five shows for Arcade Fire and closing out the POP Montreal festival.
His new album, City of Quartz, is out now, of which Pitchfork said "this is the closest Thorburn's post-Unicorns work has come to recreating that band's self-contained, fantastical sound world ... that uncanny balance of quirky and creepy remains."
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