Audrey Golden traces the legacy of The Raincoats in new biography | Books

NORTH ADAMS — Audrey Golden discovered The Raincoats in the same way many other listeners did: the liner notes of Nirvana’s 1992 compilation album “Incesticide.”

The ingenious, all-woman British post-punk outfit had been making music since the late 1970s, but hadn’t made a big splash stateside before then. Their sound was an experimental onslaught of rolling drums, thumping bass and a richly textured combination of blistering electric guitar play by Ana da Silva and scratchy, inventive violin work from fiddler Vicky Aspinall.

The music was wildly original — an intentional departure, Golden said, from the style of the white male-heavy…