The Magic Position

Transition from boy to redoubtable Wolf

The artist known as Patrick Wolf has had an interesting, if not somewhat fairytale-like journey in his transition from boy to redoubtable Wolf. Patrick, now age 23, grew up in London. He began his musical education with the viola and violin at age six then traveled across Europe in an orchestra. By the age of 11, he started to write songs to escape from school troubles. Returning to London at 16, the transition from schoolchild to man became quite troublesome, and Patrick soon began to turn into Wolf! He ran away from home to a run-down haunted house on the river in nearby Richmond. In this haunted house, he found an old, dusty, out-of-tune harpsichord, and started playing that too. At the age of 14 he joined the pop-art collective Minty and one day they went to play in Paris, and on this day, he met a spirit medium telling Patrick to rename himself after a wolf and the transformation from boy to Wolf was complete. On the same day, he also met Capitol K who loved Patrick's voice and enquired about any solo material. Wolf’s debut album Lycanthropy was born and his mysterious transformation was stopped – Patrick grew up. Two years later Patrick recorded the second work – Wind In The Wires (2005). Today, the talented Patrick Wolf is glad to introduce the listeners his beautiful, sincere new album - The Magic Position. Wolf says that his new album was “born out of a pure, naive kind of love, naive in the best sense”.

The Magic Position is full of surprises

Multi-instrumental Patrick Wolf is back with his third album The Magic Position. The album is his best work to date; it is unlike his previous two albums. With The Magic Position, Wolf shakes off much of the brooding insularity that clouded his previous records, refining his melodic strengths and overcoming his tendency toward sullen introspection. Album opener Overture has an energetic, marching pulse, its ascending violin line providing a lilting and confident backbone as Wolf announces his newly discovered positive. This work is full of surprises: beginning with the beautiful and idiosyncratic songs Accident & Emergency and The Kiss and finishing with the romantic and intimate track Enchanted. In the heart of the album, the listeners can find two fascinating hits: The Bluebell and Bluebells, which perfectly supplement each other and sound very bright and confident. Patrick’s voice is positively lustful on the beautiful Augustine and Magpie, a duet with '60s icon Marianne Faithfull, who made this record more interesting. If the album loses its mysterious way somewhat from the middle, Wolf rallies fantastically for the final vocal track The Stars, a beautiful arrangement of synthesized sounds, strings, beats, and repetitious vocals. In fact, it's really hard to find fault with this record at all. Here Patrick Wolf combined effortless air of combining childlike curiosity, cleanness and adult intelligence. Sometimes pantomime, often deeply moving, and frequently uplifting in the extreme, The Magic Position is a playful, joyous, and accomplished album.

The album completely reflects Wolf’s inner fabulous world

Now Patrick Wolf is one of the most extravagant, very intrigue and interesting singer. Dressed in a sky blue sequined polo shirt, matching shorts, claret football socks and silver platform shoes (and riding a children's merry-go-round on the album cover) he sounds every bit as mad and as great as you had expect him to. His new successful work The Magic Position completely reflects his inner fabulous world. Patrick can be named the new Bowie, but at the same time, he is proving himself the Thin White Duke's successor in more than just his extravagant dress sense. He swims against the tide; he's not an everyman, he doesn't sing about pubs, offices or discos. What he's bursting to tell you about, though, is imagination and love. He eternally loves his listeners and wants his music to be understandable for everybody. From that point of view, it would be easy to explain his The Magic Position as Patrick going pop, but things in his lycanthrope world are never quite that simple. Far from being a compromised plea for popular success, Wolf’s third album is no less driven by his enormous personality and musicality than either his debut, Lycanthropy, or Wind In The Wires; it’s just that his personality and uniqueness are brighter, happier, and stronger now.