BACKGROUND

Born in England to a Finnish mother and an Argentinean father, Nick moved to Canada with his family as a teenager. He studied at Dawson College, Montreal and at Carleton University, Ottawa, where he holds a B.A. in English Literature and Film Studies. After graduation, he spent a decade as a touring musician while also working jobs as a cook, media archivist, technical writer and English as Second Language teacher before getting involved in film and television.

 

FILM and TV BIO

​Nick Taylor works as a documentary film editor, writer and director. Recent feature film credits include writing and editing The Bones (dir: Jeremy Xido), which was a 2024 CPH-DOX and Hot Docs Official Selection; editing Sex With Sue (dir: Lisa Rideout), which won the 2023 Canadian Screen Award for Best Documentary Program and Al Purdy Was Here (dir: Brian D. Johnson) a 2015 TIFF Official Selection. Upcoming feature films include working as lead editor and associate producer on The Ballad of Judas Priest directed by Sam Dunn and Tom Morello, and The Acid Rain Movie directed by Vicki Lean and exec. produced by Adam McKay.

His first documentary feature as director, The Organizer (2017), about the community organizer Wade Rathke, has been called "a must-see film for activists" and won Best Documentary Awards at The Woodstock Film Festival and The Oxford Film Festival, as well as the Free Press Award at The Columbus Film Festival. 

 

Recent series work includes editing For Heaven's Sake and Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too? for Paramount+, The Unsolved Murder of Beverly Lynn Smith for Amazon Studios and co-writing and editing We're All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel) for CRAVE/Hulu. He won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Factual Series for We're All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel) and the CCE Award for Best Editing in a Documentary Series for For Heaven's Sake. 

 

MUSIC BIO

Nick Taylor has been active in the Toronto independent music scene since 1998, mostly as a guitarist and bassist. From 2000-2003 he was the guitarist for Alex Lukashevsky's acclaimed avant-garde band Deep Dark United, and featured on the band's Fools! EP. In 2003 Nick co-founded Lenin i Shumov with Eugene Slonimerov. The Russian-language punk/noise/dance band was a fixture of the mid-00s underground scene and released an EP on Blocks Recording Club, and was featured on the seminal Toronto is the Best!! Toronto is Great!! compilation.

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In 2004 Nick joined the orchestral pop band The Old Soul as guitarist, which shortly after signed to Universal Music. He featured on the major-label self-titled debut and on two subsequent records. With The Old Soul, Nick toured Canada and the US a number of times. He performed with the band until 2009. In 2007 Nick and his Old Soul bandmates Matt McLaren and Jay Anderson formed Steamboat, a roots/R&B band which held down popular weekly residencies at the Dakota Tavern, released three records, and often formed the backing band for Toronto songwriters Sandro Perri, Marker Starling, Emilie Mover and Andre Ethier. Nick also did stints as guitarist in the Steamboat-affiliated soul/R&B cover band The Big Sound.

 

Nick was a long-time contributor to the improvisation-based ensemble Ronley Teper's Lipliners and featured on two of her LPs. He has also been a member of Dave Clark's improv orchestra The Woodchopper's Association and directed a short film about the project. As a session guitarist he has worked with singer-songwriters Jason Collett, Kate Boothman (Katie Cruel) and Sarah Blackwood (Walk Off the Earth).

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From 2007-2011 Nick led the band Church & State, which featured Katia Taylor, Andrew Innanen, Matt McLaren and Christopher Sandes. The band released two records, Make Yourself a Stranger (2008) and Villager (2010). In 2015 Nick released a solo record titled Navigator featuring many of his prior collaborators and in 2020 he released another LP, Nostalgist, under the name Phantom Watcher.