Patrick Wolf
Wind In The Wires

THE REVIEW

Wide cliffs crossed by northern skies, white cottages speckled in the green countryside at the mercy of the elements, restless spirits in search of something. Above all: freedom. An endless desire for freedom. The desire of the wanderer, the traveler who seeks freedom but simultaneously dreams of the refuge where to stay. Patrick Wolf shares with few others the ability to evoke convincingly an entire imaginary, a world of images and words that allows one to savor more deeply the purely musical aspect of his work. When listening to Morrissey in the '80s, one dreamed of conversations about Keats and Yeats at the gates of the cemetery, went back to reread Oscar Wilde, discovered old black and white films, and came into contact with a different idea of homosexuality. Similarly, listening to Nick Cave projected you into a universe of biblical characters, murderers and wicked men, prodigal sons, and a thousand other anti-heroes and societal outcasts. Wolf envelops instead his works in a romantic mythology (romanticism in the sense of a literary/cultural movement) made of Nordic landscapes, melancholy/spleen, Tristans and Jacob's ladders, and above all a desire to escape that often leads to a departure from the city towards the desolate yet welcoming lands of Northern Europe where Nature still speaks and seduces with its play of light/shadow.

"Wind In The Wires" is the second work of a young man with a great personality who has lived, at little more than twenty, three times the experiences of the average European teenager (having fled from home very young, he wandered homeless across France, stayed in Paris, and now lives between London and Cornwall). The album expertly takes advantage of this wealth of experience, showing a surprising compositional maturity and balance for the second effort of such a young man. Wolf manages to distill his compositional references (a certain doomed singer-songwriter tradition in the Cave/PJ Harvey lineage, the Central European atmospheres, those of Celtic folk) with a remarkable dose of personality until he creates a truly original work, a thematic and linguistic universe with its own laws and semantics. From the first notes of "The Libertine", the opening track, there is a clear perception of a compact, unified listening experience. The arrangements are complex and sophisticated (viola, cello, ukulele, etc.) and are enriched by a constant background of noises and electronic sounds that further expand their dimension. The songs have their individuality, but the uniformity of a unique vision prevails, even in the difference of styles (from the cursed rock of Tristan to the folk of Eulogy to the pop of the concluding Landsend). It is definitely another point in favor of "Wind In The Wires". Patrick Wolf is an enormous talent. One on whom I would bet. We'll see what he accomplishes in the future; in the meantime, we can only enjoy this excellent work.