Anton Sword is a romantic of the old school. His Twitter profile describes him as a songwriter and flaneur from “Brooklyn and sometimes Berlin”. His first album, A Sentimental Education (2007), shares its title with a nineteenth-century French novel. His song titles include “On the Precipice”, “Behind the Scarlet Curtain”, and “City of Oblivion”. All this lavish, sublime, Baudelairean-Flaubertian romantic ambience is surely enough to put even the sourest of sour pusses in the mood for Valentine’s Day. We’re delighted that Anton has agreed to mark the occasion with a selection of his favourite romantic tracks. But first, if you’re new to Anton’s music, a few words of introduction. The influence of French modernism already noted is overlaid with a distinctly postmodern approach to instrumentation and structure. He will happily mix an electronic pulse with more traditional instrumentation; his chord progressions defy generic expectations; his voice, at once sensitive and passionate, tender and hard, gives his lyrics an ironic edge. As, say, Morrissey’s hound-dog vocals and melancholy lyrics form unholy alliances, so Anton’s wry observations find themselves couched in lush orchestration. Take the opening of “Here in the Hurricane”, for instance: Like Morrissey — or Kristian Hoffman, another artist with whom Anton bears comparison […]