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You already know, my friends, I like werewolves: in this intricate forest of life, I am always searching for someone to howl a lovely serenade to me. And by pure chance, stumbling over a root, I came across this young and wild Patrick Wolf, a young wolf who was hiding behind a hedge.
It's all written in his name, and in the title of the debut album, Lycanthropy. Look at the cover... a Peter Pan with a hula hoop in hand, in a dark square where there's a shabby market. Where did he come from? This is how Patrick presents himself, a lanky Irish squatter transplanted to London and barely in his twenties. I've got a crush on this "wolf cub," I'm not ashamed to admit it. Love at first sight! But how can I? Oh, if only I were twenty again!
His music. It's not just the image that fascinates me; it's the album that makes a dirty impression. First listen: starts with wolves growling. Then, in the rest of the album, I hear sublime violas and violins, a ukulele, an accordion, a piano, and sudden, sparse, venomous lashes of a very tight drum machine. No electric guitars, or basses, or drums. The tracks oscillate between brit-folk and essential electronic, between ancient Victorian-style compositions, with female choirs and epic melodies, interspersed with poignant and frenetic dark-wave rhythmic structures. The voice is distinctly brit, balancing between a Robert Smith (a fresh tribute in the song Peter Pan), a Jeff Buckley (hear the superb and deep Demolition), and a Morrissey (undoubtedly Smith-like the most "classic" track, London). An intimate, confident voice, even if often verbose and brazen, lively and emphatic. What a character! An ambitious shaman of notes, the handsome Patrick, who knows how to blend tradition and avant-garde without breaking a sweat, maintaining an underlying coherence that among the tracks of his Lycanthropy often does not fail to amaze.
I read the lyrics. With the first track, Wolf Song ("The moon, let it guide you / when Selene comes, we'll all know how to fight / dear Fenrir, my saviour / come and eat the ones...") we get right into the heart of the "lycanthropy" theme. The second track, Bloodbeat, follows the same coordinates: "...My blood beats black tonight / no need for comfort / no need for light / I am hunting for secrets tonight / Eat the sorrow lick the spark / uh oh my blood beats dark...". Seductive young man!
Curious, I immediately turn to my favorite piece, the seventh, The Childcatcher. Frenzied drum'n'bass, crazy violins, voice pulled between shrill screams and suffering whimpers, and: "I was still a child when you caught me and tied me to your bed / you gave me shoes and pretty clothes / and I gave you what I had between my legs / Just a rite of passage, you held me down and said / I'm gonna be your right of passage, so boy, you better spread, spread 'em...". Oh oh! But here we are talking about pedophilia! The track opens with a terrible chorus: "...run run run as fast as you can but you can't run run from the childcatcher's hands...". Yikes! If I hadn't read the lyrics, I would dance to this piece.
Undoubtedly chilling stories hover among these mad notes and these ancient choirs like the crown of Queen Elizabeth. This boy has an endless, twilight shadow zone where nightmares rendezvous. As colorful and cheerful as the music seems, the lyrics are of a deep and dense black. An explosive mix.
Patrick explains, in an interview, that his album is a concept on the ritual transition from adolescence to adult life, symbolized here by lycanthropy, where a magical and cathartic ceremony is set up, through a circle of fire, beyond, to be reborn into a new life.
"I want two dogs two cats a big kitchen and a welcome mat / I want all this and all shall have / I don't give up / A boy like me don't ever / give up his dream..." (A Boy Like Me)
I really like this guy, and now I have a strong desire to hold him tight so he doesn't slip away.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
03 Bloodbeat (03:50)
I wake at dusk to go alone.
Without a light
to the unknown.
I want this night inside of me.
I want to feel.
I want this speeding.
I want that speeding.
My blood beats black tonight! (3,5x)
No need for comfort
no need for light.
I am hunting for secrets tonight.
Eat the sorrow lick the spark.
Uh oh my blood beats dark (x2)
And here it comes
it comes for me
I want to run
I want to scream.
Get in my car with both eyes closed.
Full pedal down
And I am speeding!
And I am speeding!
My blood beats black tonight!(x4,5)
No need for comfort
no need for light.
I'm hunting down demons tonight.
Eat the terror lick the spark.
Uh oh my blood beats dark. (x2)
04 To the Lighthouse (04:05)
The day our house collapsed
I went down stream.
Ifollowed the swans
Like i follow my dreams.
oh! i was living on borrowed time in a
borrowed house for a borrowed crime.
in need of help i came to your door.
saw the spike of the railings from
the 28/3rd floor.
singing
"build your castle, stop collecting stones
and the river bed shall not be yoru home"
To the lighthouse my friend!
Ibless your words and education
To the lighthouse my friend.
just go! just go!
To the lighthouse my friend.
I am sorry that you came to find
"great great minds
against themselvesconspire'
now the bombs drop around our feet,
do we throw them back
or bow and greet them.
everyone now, is so terrifyed
of the glowing dark
and those orange skies.
sing it:
'build your castle, stop throwing stones
cos' those fire birds are
coming down on our homes"
To the lighthouse my friends
it cannot even be a question
To the lighthouse my friends
we must go, we must go
05 Pigeon Song (03:34)
London, did you have to take my child away?
You buried him under rent and low pay.
I've been cycling in circles 'round your empty streets.
I've been searching in the pouring rain.
I've been going alone to the cinema.
I've been stealing all my food from the electric avenue.
Now the pigeons gather 'round my feeding hand.
And we talk 'til the evening fades.
I have learnt how it goes.
What you wait for never shows.
And what you least wanted, holds you down like a stone.
just like a stone.
So.
Now i feed the birds. Day after day.
Only they can hear me pray for.
A lighter heart. A lighter load.
To be moving. Moving. Moving my way home.
My, way home.
Way home.
My, way home.
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