Patrick Wolf — 3 Albums: Lycanthropy (2003), Wind in the Wires (2005), The Magic Position (2007)

Patrick Wolf is a British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and performer who has released 3 albums of arty indie pop to date. His fourth album, Battle, that is due out this spring will feature the actress Tilda Swinton who will provide spoken word to several tracks, acting as a "voice of hope."


The Lone Wolf of Indie
by Malcolm Mackenzie, www.thelondonpaper.com

[Until 2007] Wolf was the best-kept secret of the indie underground and alt-club kid generation. He is a magnetic force of melodic alchemy, experimentia, dancefloor bravado and ethereal balladry. It’s this genre-defying “what the f***ness!” that sees him being compared with more interesting female artists like Björk and Kate Bush, rather than the current slurry of turgid male artists.

The Magic Position is his first album for record giant Polydor. “I wanted a new challenge,” he explains. “I didn’t need to sign to a major label. I could have gone on releasing records myself. I have reached the point of self-sufficiency.”

Wolf has actually been fairly self-sufficient since he ran away from home at 16 and started busking. But his musical apprenticeship started well before then. “When I was 11, I got a four-track recorder,” he says. “It meant I didn’t have to worry that I had no friends at school because the moment I got home I plugged in the microphone. By the time I released my first record, I’d almost done ten years of secret training.”

Helping Wolf to reach his “magic position” is worldly-wise chanteuse Marianne Faithfull, who graces the sublime Magpie. “I sent her a painting of a magpie and some lyrics, and nine months later I woke up with a message on my answer-phone. We spent a day in a hotel room, not rehearsing just talking, listening to Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash, and throwing food into the lobby. The next day she came into the studio and did the song.”

The singer could well blossom into this generation’s Bowie or Morrissey – his fan base is equally devoted and he shares their sense of drama and, importantly, sexual ambiguity. “I live a life full of possibilities,” he says with a glint in his eye. “In the same way I don’t know if my sixth album is going to be a death-metal record or children’s pop, I don’t know whether I’m destined to live my life with a horse, a woman or a man. It makes life easier.”


Wolf in Hot-Pants
by Anthony Carew, www.theage.com.au

A violin prodigy who sang in the local church choir, the London-born Wolf began recording at the age of 11, signing his first record deal at 16.

"From a very early age, I started going to nightclubs, hanging out with drag queens, doing performance art. It was almost like joining the circus," he recalls.

It's that image of the outcast weirdo harbouring a hatred of high school that appeals to Wolf's ardent followers. His first two albums, 2003's Lycanthropy and 2005's Wind in the Wires, seethe with such teenage rage, their belligerent drum-programming, dramatic vocal delivery and classicist pallor painting Wolf as a new-millennium Trent Reznor.

With The Magic Position, Wolf's made his "mature, mid-20s record". Built on harpsichord and piano, wed to a Viennese string quartet, and highlighted by a duet with Marianne Faithfull, it's a far more complex work than his youthful outbursts.

"I don't want to make those records that have two emotions: love and not-love. I like to explore all the different, contradictory feelings that make up this experience of being human," Wolf says. "I move through a lot of different identities, and a lot of extremes."