Patrick Wolf

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Key tracks:

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  1. Hard Times
  2. Damaris
  3. Vulture
  4. Tristan
  5. Apparition
  6. To The Lighthouse

Label:

Description:

Dislocated, convulsive pop from South London's bona fide musical genius.

Twenty six-year-old South London born singer songwriter Patrick Wolf bestows the image and demeanour of a man far removed from the world of popular music.  The intense, mesmeric, ballad-driven music he makes suggests otherwise, yet his is a particular, unique brand of dislocated, convulsive pop which sounds like everything and nothing we’ve ever heard before. The man is a bona fide musical genius.

He looks not dissimilar to Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie, critics have likened him to a male Kate Bush and his cosmically angled, madcap music takes its cue from Syd Barratt, Psychic TV, Morrissey, Robert Smith, Panda Bear and Mars Volta.

The continuing story of Patrick Wolf is such that it has attracted and intrigued a battalion of fans worldwide.  Disillusioned with life on major record labels, Wolf took the unusual step of selling £10 shares of his latest record on bandstocks.com.  Despite being completely self and fan-funded, part one of the two part album - “The Bachelor” - rocketed straight into the UK Top 40 in the first week of release.

The album, his career fourth, provides an unexpected, refreshing and thought-provoking take on the turmoil of love, lust and heartache.  Second track “Hard Times” is an unusual (for Wolf) guitar-laden, Patti Smith-esque commentary about working harder during hard times in the modern world (how apt), while “Damaris” is a huge, semi-autobiographical love ballad with soaring strings and a pastoral feel.

“Vultures” (as the ace video by Ace Norton below shows) is about "getting on with the show as the big wheels turn". A sonically charged warped-bass electro-house throb that swerves and surges like a fast car and stands up just as well as a instrumental.

Wolf’s 2005 release “Wind In The Wires” is both angelic and devilish.  “Tristan” is a quirky, new-wave-art-rock song interspersed with shattering hip-hop style beats.  Meanwhile interlude track “Apparition” adds a medieval ingredient to the mix as echoing strings provoke (as the title suggests) a haunting sense of fear and forboding.

“To The Lighthouse” from Wolf’s debut album “Lycanthropy” is a rare, melodic voyage into the somewhat choppy waters of folktronica.  The track reflects the tumult, audacity and eagerness of what is a defiantly different, masterful album.

Part two of "The Conqueror” is due for release in 2010.

Things to watch:

Releases we represent:

  • The Bachelor | Album | 2009 Release available in the USA
  • Lycanthropy | Album | 2004 Release available in the USA
  • Wind In The Wires | Album | 2005

Quotes:

For "The Bachelor":

“A whispered breath away from sheer perfection” Clash 9/10

“You honestly won’t hear a better album this year...” Dazed And Confused 

“Fourteen shape shifting tracks coalescing into one epic psychodrama… the ballads swoop and soar like vintage Kate Bush… complex and beautiful” **** Q

“A heady, richly satisfying experience” ***** Financial Times

“The most convincing Kate Bush album of the year turns out to be by a man… It’s a ravishing production, and feels like a fresh start for a brilliant career” **** Uncut

“Sometimes movingly raw, elsewhere overly melodramatic. Wolf’s ambition is impressive” ***** Sunday Express

“Original, imaginative” ***** Time Out

“Richly textured electro-pop teems with flamboyance” **** The Observer Music Monthly 

“An album that rushes over you like a waterfall, demanding awe”  NME 

“A brilliant victory for art over commerce” Attitude 

“52 minutes of dark, emotionally guileless perfection” CMU

“...Patrick Wolf is unlike any singer-songwriter around.  More radical, more talented, more confounding, more ridiculous.” The Observer

"It's both romantic and strangely futuristic with echoes of Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" creating drama alongside the digital clamour" The Word

Tracks included on the following samplers: