I hadn't selected any alt-country or folk, yet, but here comes First Aid Kit, a Swedish group that sounds like they're from the Ozarks. I like the inauthenticity of the voices, the artificiality - but then again, who says Americans own country? "I'm a goddamn fool, but then again, so are you" - it's a great genre work, and really brings you into its cornpone world of faux Nashville gee-tars. Fans of Fleet Foxes will love their whole album, in fact.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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