The xx has won this year's Mercury prize. Eyewear has long appreciated this band - well, since they came out a little over a year ago. The xx are the most sonically original British band in a decade, and perhaps the most melodically spare and intriguing - by marrying post-punk guitars to an urban spoken delivery (that also echoes Lou Reed) they manage to represent the traditions of The Beatles, The Smiths, Nirvana, but also the current dark landscape. Their debut album is awfully beautiful, very haunting, and keeps a curious distance - emotive but cool, like Portishead was. This is an example of timeless artistry, that, whatever they do next, cannot stale.
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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