Now, for something completely different. Die Antwoord are South African. But they appear from another planet. Easily the most rebarbitive, and obnoxiously weird group of people in the world at the moment, they combine the least settling aspects of inbreeding, mental illness, poverty, deformity, modern primitivism and Dadaism, to inflect their enraged, sexually ambiguous, and thrilling look and sound with the truly uncanny. I can't think of a song or video this century so likely to amaze and appall in equal measure. I admire them, find them fascinating. Why are they not gods? 'I Fink U Freeky' is just plain amazing fun.
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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