"I've got a great friend, Todd Robinson, who runs a shop called Luna Music in Indianapolis, and we've been on lots of road trips together in America over the years. We both bond over music like this, stuff that has an American alt-psych-folk-rock feel. I find it a really appealing sound, and it's usually lifted by a great voice. Gold Leaves have that with Grant Olsen, who has such a beautiful voice. It's part beautiful, part-weary, part-determined, part-resigned. The music, too, is all a bit casual on the outside, a bit Lee Hazlewood, a bit Scott Walker, a bit melancholy, but it all comes together into something really special. We played this driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. It was perfect.
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"Throughout my writing life I have relied on Marina Warner to guide me through the hidden realms of literature and culture. She has a wast knowledge of folk stories, religious tracts, legends and classical works from all points of the globe and her analysis of how they continue to be present in our lives and work is always inspiring. In Stranger Magic she tells the story of how Scheherazade’s tales in The Arabian Nights were embraced and appropriated by western culture without ever loosing their original power. As I am working my way towards a new novel which includes the influence of Arabic culture on medieval Icelandic writing Warner has once again provided me with her keen insight into the mechanisms of how stories travel."