patrick wolf?

Yeah. The Petridis review was jaw-dropping. It manages to be baffled at yw PW could find review offensive and stupid while being offensive and stupid.

My favourite bit was where he couldn't understand what might be homophobic about marketing someone specifically as a niche "gay musician".

OK, Sing?

SING.

Fucking SING. Holy fucking shit in the name of all the is holy the vocal arrangements on that song, aaaaahhhhhhhhh.

Wow.

CD has arrived here. Sounds fabulous not got to bonus disc yet.

Sing is just next-level John Tavener polyphonic vocal harmony that just makes me wish he would quit pop music forever and just write Elizabethan motets in, like, 16 part harmony for the rest of his life.

Honestly, the first time I heard it, I know this is such a cliche but I genuinely had shivers going up and down my spine it's just so emotional.

None of that lovey love-love land crap, just genuine amazing, powerful, inspirational - dare I say spiritual - stuff.

My CD and bonus disc has been shipped but Canada Post is on strike for the foreseeable future. Sigh.

::whistles innocently::

check your ILXmail...

Thx. I had the b-side version of that from my 7" single of The City, but this is really nice!

Still upset that Lemuralia does not include "Wild Life". Guess that was one of the ten LA dance tracks he tossed in the trash. Shame.

Oh wow. On proper headphones. This is properly gorgeous. And very different from the version I had. (re: Sing (Acapella Version))

Just realized that the lyrics of 'Together' are

I can do this alone, but we could do this so much better together.
I can make it alone, but we could make it so much better together.

My brain had read in the standard love song codependence, but this is so much more lovely. It's a big sweeping coupley love song, but it's one that doesn't surrender his own abilities or independence or self-worth.

Out today.

That lyric in Together flips it from being really good into being great.

http://thequietus.com/articles/06449-patrick-wolf-lupercalia-review

Good article, Nick!

Canada Post continues to fail me, so I still haven't received my copies of Lupercalia/Lemuralia, but after a week or two of not listening to it, am spinning Lupercalia obsessively. Also, the two new b-sides for the House single are quite lovely. (Mercia and Divine Intervention.)

Hoping that the lack of release for Wild Life on Lemuralia means it will be a b-side for Together or something like that.

Just got this. So far, I'm digging the back half of the record much, much more than the front, particularly loving the stretch from Time of My Life to the end. The string arrangements on The Days are really beautiful, and Together is just glorious.

I love Slow Motion too partly because the lyrics hit home harder for me than any of the la-la-in-love songs on the record. I guess I like that, unlike the other songs, Slow Motion acknowledges what it takes to get to that place where you can finally give yourself over completely to another person ie finding the strength to get rid of all of this --> "Yes, I was too young to weep from the road. And too proud for help, too scared to grow."

Also like Kate, I don't have the stomach for schmaltz - you're not alone, I really dislike Bermondsey Street too (and House. and The City. glad that I more or less liked everything that came after, I was this close to turning it off completely. :/).

Yeah, I agree the second half is stronger than the first. But it seems like it was purposely frontloaded with really pop singles, and hey it worked coz it went Top 40, innit?

this house is wonderful, and the video is really spectacular

I don't know how I missed this remix, but it will bring pleasure to the ears of those wishing that PW would go in a more straight-up dance remix, with bubbling acid 303s and everything, thank you Mr Ceephax

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKF1XgYXUec

Love this homo.

Quite upset that there are only three North American dates this fall/winter/spring and none of them in Canada.

Fair warning to the ILM Patrick Wolf crew - I'll be taking the helm over at One Week One Band starting next Monday to write about him.

In the process of planning but think I have a general sense of what I'm doing.

Is there anything you think is an absolute must-discuss that I'm probably forgetting?

[Also, we never spoke about that Brumalia EP that came out in December, which was pretty darn good, and included Patrick's blatant attempt at a Christmas song.

Never really got to grips with Brumalia; I think Lupercalia just Patrick'd me out for 2011. Overdosed on it a lot, I guess. Be sure to link to your stuff in here.

Patrick Wolf week has begun over at One Week One Band. Hope I do him justice.

If yr awesome "House" blurb is any indication, I expect greatness.

thank you Alex, looking forward to this!

I am looking forward to this too! Not looking forward to the impact of this week + EMP Conference on my term paper, but whatevs.

Hey gang - any thoughts/feedback so far? I still have time to drastically edit the last three days. Heh.

But seriously, if there's something really awesome that I should be mentioning from Magic Position/Bachelor/Lupercalia era let me know.

No, keep going! It's been great so far, really can't think of anything you've missed. Maybe there's something to be said about his monthly handwritten letters to fans - I haven't kept up with that stuff for years though so I don't know if he still writes them but I always thought it was a great way to keep people interested in between albums/tours. Anyway, loved your reading of The Childcatcher, and lol'd at the WiTW video being compared to D'angelo. :)

Argh, I have been meaning to read this, but it's hard to keep up since I don't have a Tumblr. Will go and catch up now!

He had monthly handwritten letters to fans? WHAT? Wow.

I missed out.

I also have never heard of this!

ahhhh sorry, I didn't make that clear, that does sound like he wrote and mailed it to them - i meant the ones that he used to put up on his myspace blog? He wrote them by hand and scanned them in.

took me a while to find one (apparently they've all been sucked into the internet vortex) but they looked like this:

(apologies in advance for hugeness)
http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i123/tom_bland/zzzzz.jpg

or rather, longness...

A few more here.

Ok. It's done, and I've somewhat recovered from writing/compiling 27,000 words or so. The entire OWOB: Patrick Wolf week is archived chronologically.

Thanks to all of y'all, esp. Roz for those letters, which I posted near the end of the week.

I finally finished reading it all - tremendous work in such a short space of time, Alex! So many links, so many pictures. Really enjoyed your coverage of the whole Battle era esp - went off him a bit at the time so it was nice to see what I'd missed like... uh, I had no idea "Careless Talk" was written by Angelo Badalamenti! That changes things...

seriously, terrific stuff. And glad to see you managed to fit the letters in somehow. :)

New acoustic album, sund4rk & Riverlight, is in fact not NEW but re-recording of a selection of the first decade of his catalogue Joni/Kate style.

“Baptise me with the courage that has seen you
Through great fire doodlebug and bombscare
The Courage of the Immigrant
Canonize the blacks dogs and irish
Who led me to be born to your bells
Raised me to not sink in you suffer
Nor perish in our plague of demolition
London, goodnight
sund4rk and Riverlight”

This project started when I realized I had reached a ten year jubilee as a recording artist, my first EP came out when I was 19 and in that time my voice has grown with me.

I started out playing with just one instrument and singing with no microphones in folk clubs, on the streets and galleries, I missed that raw communication so much and the spontaneous energy of that live situation, which I am bringing back on this world tour ahead. When I went in to the studio I thought I was going to record a one man solo album, but I started to dream and heard bassoons and bodhrans, this is my first totally acoustic album and so I made sure that we were working with analogue tape and mixing desk.

I went on a mission to find a grand piano with the best bass response still full of character and I was told about Real World studios but the piano there was too new, so Peter Gabriel lent me his Bosendorfer Grand and later his Bodhran and Hammer Dulcimer, the album and I are very grateful.

At the beginning of the Lupercalia tour I bought myself a Celtic harp, I stopped playing concert harp just before my first full orchestra solo performance of Cesar Francks A Sharp minor aged 16 as I ran away from home and couldn’t take the harp with me and had nowhere to practice, at 28 with a lot of water under the bridge I felt old enough to be reunited with the instrument again, I think having the harp back in my music has been a big inspiration for making this album.

Recording in Real World was what I desired so much for ‘sund4rk & Riverlight’ to be as alone as I could by a river. I put the string Quartet up on the balcony of the wood room studio to have them suspended as if the sound for the listener was coming from the sun, then I recorded the woodwind quartet in the Pool Studio which is like an empty swimming pool in Bermondsey as if the sound was as a reflection on water.

A couple of years ago I met one of my heroes John Cale after he asked me to support him at the Royal Festival Hall and after our discussion, I suddenly felt allergic to the way music is being produced at the moment, so I knew I was going to start experimenting with acoustic recordings again, my ambition was not to open up my laptop but to retune the Benchside Spinet that had been gathering dust under my bed and open the lid and dream hammers and strings. There was a conscious rebellion on this album against the digital age of auto-tune and mass produced electronic landfill music. I want to present at my 10 year anniversary a musical biography.

I grew up with a love of medieval, minimalist and renaissance classical music as well as listening to Atari Teenage Riot and obsessed with labels like Planet Mu and Tigerbeat 6. My degree studying composition was aborted quickly as it was the same year I had the opportunity to release my debut album Lycanthropy and go on a world tour, I just felt at this point I wanted to revisit a minimalist medieval sound that’s very dear to me. I would say this album was influenced by Stephen Micus, Shirley and Dolly Collins, His Name is Alive, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, The Rachels, Meredith Monk, Johnny Cash, Henry Purcell and John Blow. I chose to shoot the artwork at Hilles House in Gloucester a country mansion looking over the River Severn. rich in the heritage of family members such as the baroque composer John Blow and the rebel fashion visionary Isabella Blow.

Instead of compiling the highlights of my recordings from the last ten years I thought I would highlight the songwriting I felt relevant today to me first of all. As singer and songwriter I notice that some songs take on a life of their own once released, for instance I never knew that ‘Paris’ from ‘Lycanthropy’ would become such an important song for my crowd, often when I perform the songs after they are recorded, new words or meanings come to mind and then i start to improvise as to how I am feeling that night. I thought It was time after a decade to take a moment to document what these songs have grown up to be while I’ve been travelling them around the world.

I made my first album with whatever I had around me, a ton of passion and guts, a 4 track, then a laptop, I had little knowledge of audio engineering so a lot of soldering wires happened and microphones purchased that I didn’t know whether suited my voice or instruments, this album is a chance to re record with better knowledge of how to record and produce my work.

Listening to all the songs of the last ten years I have written to choose what was to be re recorded for sund4rk & Riverlight was enough to drive me insane, I found many recurring patterns, hope out of anger, sadness out of joy, The title comes from the song “London” two words I made up when I was a teenager that i feel describe my body of work to date. Its been a wonderful self assessment to make this album, extremely cathartic, Its left me a clear slate, head and heart to be able to move forward with the next 10 years. I would like to thank Buffy St Marie who co-wrote the new version of Hard Times with me. This is the only cowrite on the album, we met in Barcelona during the recording session and after some amazing discussions about war, peace and revolution she channelled a new message and edition of the song for me. Vulture is now back to the original composition before the co-written Alec Empire version on The Bachelor.

I can’t wait to embark on the forthcoming tour to share these songs and re-compose other songs that didn’t make it on this album, I will be taking requests every night so get in contact through twitter and facebook in advance.. all songs considered.

Now all the work is done and artwork ready to be printed (which will be unveiled shortly), I write this letter to you from a beautiful Greek island which I took a slow night boat to get to, Im resting my voice which i began to lose at the end of the album. Yesterday I met one of the three pelicans of the island on the beach they are only seen rarely and when you meet one you are blessed with good luck.. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to be able to make this album, to have such a wonderful world wide wolfpack. I made this record as much for you as I did for myself.

With love, luck, sund4rk and riverlight xx Patrick Wolf

Kind of disappointed that this is being positioned in part as a reaction against electronic landfill music etc. because he's better than having to say things like that and knows how to write a damn good pop song, but he does that weird thing where he yo-yos back and forth between talking about how much he loves Britney/Girls Aloud/whatever and acting as though pop music is the bane of existence, so I'm sure it'll be another phase.

The reinterpretations should be quality and also BUFFY SAINTE MARIE.

+1. Buffy Ste. Marie omg omg omg

Right? Are you going to be in Montreal for his Pop show, or is he stopping in Toronto as well?

(although it's unclear if Buffy APPEARS on the album or just gets a co-write. I hope we get her voice, because it's maybe the only thing that could top that Marianne Faithful duet from Magic Position)

I have an awful, awful feeling I'm not going to like this. I tend to think that artists' first impulses are generally correct. That having constrained circumstances fuels creativity, and going back over old ground makes things less good rather than better. I mean, obviously I will listen, to challenge that view, but I don't think it bodes well.

if you don't like it, at least keep in mind that: "Its been a wonderful self assessment to make this album, extremely cathartic, Its left me a clear slate, head and heart to be able to move forward with the next 10 years."

it's a moment of reflection, and not an indication of direction. Lupercalia felt like the end of a particular musical journey, anyway, to be honest.

I'm also not sure I believe that. "I'm gonna retread old material" is often a sign of a block. But if this is his way of moving past it, good for him.

I agree WCC, but in Wolf's case I think it'll suit him? His records have been identity- and genre-experiments as much as they've been "filled with songs". Considering how inspired he's been by Mitchell et al., his arrangement decisions have decidedly been more contemporary (or at least, a hybridization). I'm very optimistic!

Tracklist appearing on various music store websites - not official but seems legit. Three off each album and then one song from the Brumalia EP. Nothing from the early singles and b-sides, which is a shame. This sort of re-recording/retrospective would have been a good chance to get Pumpkin Soup or Godrevy Point or something out to a wider audience, but it looks like a solid collection.

1. The Libertine
2. Vulture
3. Paris
4. Overture
5. Wind in the Wires
6. Oblivion
7. Bitten
8. Hard Times
9. Together
10. The Magic Position
11. Bermondsey Street
12. Bluebells
13. Teignmouth
14. London
15. House
16. Wolf Song

I mean, I'm not sure why we need a new version 'Bitten' or how 'Teignmouth' or 'Wind in the Wires', static beats aside, aren't already more or less an acoustic track, but we'll see soon enough

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17vvl8wngl64rjpg/original.jpg

Your search for "patrick wolf" "the magic potion" returned 160,000 results

First taste of the album = promo video with the re-recorded Overture (which was always acoustic, no? just very orchestral)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=3i-KqFCKa_c

The new version is nice enough, although I'm going to miss that stunning chamber quartet arrangement - one of my favourite bits of PW's string work.

However, per much of the thread earlier discussion, PW wandering around shirtless in a field continues to be a welcome sight.