Patrick Wolf Shares ‘Penzance’ From: The Circling Sky
A Selected Collection Of B-Sides And Rarities
Out On Vinyl And Digital December 21
December 15, 2023 – New York, NY: Revered singer, songwriter, composer and producer Patrick Wolf shares ‘Penzance‘ today, taken from The Circling Sky a finely crafted collection of B-sides and Rarities spanning 21 years, from Wolf’s beginnings as a musician when he was a teenager. Originally announced as a vinyl only release, it will now also be available on digital platforms December 21st.
Whilst in the studio working on his seventh studio album, Wolf was inspired to compile The Circling Sky looking back across a stellar career to date, and features some of his most beloved tracks not featured on an LP project. It is carefully sequenced into an album by Wolf himself and was meticulously mastered for the first time at Abbey Road Studios by Alex Wharton. Initially to be released on very special limited edition vinyl, listeners will be encouraged to immerse themselves in the sequence it was created. The LP can be ordered via Patricks website.
Wolf delves into the story of ‘Penzance’;
“This song began being written in the eye of a rapidly gathering love affair when I was 18 while I was finishing writing my debut “Lycanthropy” – within a few days of meeting each other while I had just been fired from my job repairing leather coats in Camden Market, he encouraged me to elope and skip an interview for a job to be a bead salesman and leave London to adventure and dissolve into a stretch expanse of West Cornwall where he and his family were from. He booked us a cabin on the night train to Penzance via Teignmouth and in the coming days I would be introduced to the world of my second album, Godrevy Point, The Towans, Lands End and of course the title of this song. By the time I had finished “Wind in the Wires” five years later in 2004, this song ultimately felt like it disassembled something of the concise claustrophobic narrative I had sequenced for the album, so despite being such a key song to the project, I slipped it perhaps also a little self conscious of its intimacy onto the relative obscurity of a b-side, yet to this day I know it has lived on to be one of my audiences most beloved songs of mine. This mastering of it finally brings its intricate and delicate nocturnal production to life I think too.”
Listen to ‘Penzance’ on YouTube:
The Circling Sky features two previously un-digitized tracks, ‘Pumpkin Soup‘ and ‘Empress’, only previously available on 2002’s debut EP limited vinyl. ‘Short Story’ was a B-side intended for the Lycanthropy album singles, but no singles from the album were released. The album opens with ‘Night Train’, a B-side intended for Wind in the Wires, but was requested by CocoRosie to appear on a very limited compilation album alongside Vashti Bunyan and Devandra Barnhart that helped define a new collective and genre of folk music in the mid 2000s.
The release also features some of the most beloved rarities, that have sometimes taken on an even greater popularity with his fanbase than his most well known singles over the years from the catalogue, such as ‘Godrevy Point’ and ‘Penzance’ alongside the arresting 5 minute composition for four Violas, each played by Wolf, ‘Ignis Fatuus. The album takes us on a overnight train journey to deep West Cornwall, through the harpsichord laden brutal retelling of the fairytale ‘The Tinderbox’ as autobiography, and finishes on the autumn beaches of West Cork with ‘Pumpkin Soup’. In many ways this is sure to stand as a companion album to 2005’s Wind in The Wires album.
The photography for The Circling Sky was shot by the artist Bryan Sansivero, famed for his haunting documentation of abandoned buildings, most famously in his New York Times bestselling book “American Decay”. This is his first album artwork and a collaboration with Patrick that includes illustrations entwined with Brian’s portraits of Patrick taken at the end of winter at the foot of the cliffs at the end of Wolf’s road in East Kent, wearing clothes hand sewn at the time of sequencing the album, the week of the shoot, as detailed in the handwritten album liner notes. “I carried these songs with me down to the shore, The black blood soaked cloak of penzance, the ribcage of the rocks I had seen 19 years before at Godrevy in my stare, an apparition beyond the lens”.
The vinyl copies are limited to 1000, the first 500 signed, pressed on “flaming sky” colored vinyl, a pull out lyric sheet and portrait artwork print on the reverse, handwritten credits and liner notes sleeve and in total four portraits by Brian Sansivero alongside a dreamscape of illustrations by Patrick.
Patrick Wolf is one of the most talented and idiosyncratic musicians of his generation, with a run of critically hailed albums, starting with Lycanthropy in 2003 to Lupercalia in 2011 which saw him incorporating everything from viola, celtic harp, dulcimer, baritone ukulele, piano, harpsichord, analog synthesizers and re-sampled field recordings in his music and collaborating with the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Tilda Swinton, Angelo Badalamenti and Patti Smith, among others. He most recently released The Night Safari EP this year, his first body of work in ten years. Patrick is currently in the studio working on his seventh studio album due for release next year, his first album since 2011. Coinciding with the release, Patrick is set to play “The Night Before”, a winter solstice concert at Earth Hackney on 19th December, tickets here.
The Circling Sky Tracklisting:
- Night Train
- Godrevy Point
- Souvenirs
- Penzance
- The Hazelwood
- Short Story
- Ignis Fatuus
- The Tinderbox
- Empress
- Idumea
- Pumpkin Soup
Credit: Bryan Sansivero
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