"You're here to set people's heads on fire"

As a music writer, Neil Kulkarni - who has died at the shockingly early age of just 51 - was many things: fiercely opinionated, insightful, passionate. But above all, the most valuable quality of his writing is that it left you in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that music - and culture more generally - genuinely matters.

Kulkarni could of course be righteously scathing - and hilariously so, even when savaging your favourite artist or band. Take, for instance, his assault on Oasis as "grisly, half-formed necrophilia" and "toxic mediocrity". The Brothers Grim also featured in his list of the "ten most overrated albums in pop history", which included (among other things) eviscerations of Bobby Gillespie ("an aggregator unable to inject any persona/anything unique into these endless displays of his immaculate taste because he genuinely only exists in the spaces between the things he owns") and Frank Zappa's entire musical output ("the most contemptible plank-wankery, devoid of joy, dedicated only to an endlessly egotistic proof of technical ability"). For an acerbic turn of phrase, he was your go-to guy. 

But music didn't only arouse Kulkarni's ire - it also evidently fired his soul. As such, it's only right to also signpost some of his most positively effusive pieces, such as this wonderful and very personal tribute to fellow Coventrian Terry Hall.

Prior to his passing, I must admit I wasn't aware of his A New Nineties series for the Quietus - what a pleasure to discover it, albeit belatedly and in such sad circumstances. His feature on Come and their "hard-boiled, poignant tightrope walk 'tween realism and romance" instantly had me revisiting Near Death Experience.

But the Codeine piece that preceded it is even better. That band are so special, and in Kulkarni they found someone who could actually come close to putting into words what it is they do: "They weren't exactly a way of life. But they were a whole new way of getting used to dying." Live, he wrote, the trio focus "with almost supernatural, painstaking concentration on giving every single moment its maximal impact" (though the same is true on record), while rightly assessing The White Birch as "perhaps their most coherent, cataclysmic, perfect statement". Seeing them perform 'Sea' at Primavera in 2012 - a couple of months before Kulkarni spoke to the band's Stephen Immerwahr and Chris Brokaw - was as close to a religious experience as this atheist will ever get.

As well as writing for a living, Kulkarni also taught the art of doing so. Perhaps the best place to wrap up is with his brilliant Drowned In Sound guide to record reviewing, which instantly makes me feel the need to raise my game tenfold. The advice? Love language, relish having the freedom to say what you want (safe in the knowledge that its impact within the industry is inevitably going to be negligible) - and "[i]f you don't regret what you've written after you've written it, or find in revisiting past work an occasional INTENSE embarrassment (and equally intense pride) you're probably not doing your job properly".

Ultimately, Kulkarni argued, "[a]ccept that everything you say will be forgotten and ignored but write as if you and your words are immortal". Suffice to say that his own words are a fitting memorial to a singular talent.