Artists Of The Year

CMU Albums Of The Year 2009: Patrick Wolf – The Bachelor

By | Published on Monday 7 December 2009

As we head towards the end of the year, we’ll be revealing, in no particular order, our ten favourite albums of 2009. First up, Patrick Wolf’s ‘The Bachelor’.
 
Outside the studio, Patrick Wolf appears to be a man who goes out looking for conflict and then complains very loudly when he finds it. Inside, this personality trait manifests itself as a self-assured knowledge that he knows best. Hence, he shunned the label system and raised £100,000 through Bandstocks.com in order to record the not unironically named double album, ‘Battle’, which he later elected to split into two separate releases.
 
A lush album, full of rich strings and contrasting electronics, the first part of the set, ‘The Bachelor’, was released in June. Wilfully theatrical, the album shares much in common with My Life Story, but also takes clear influence from Alec Empire (who appears on two tracks) and The Postal Service.
 
As well as Empire, other guests include actress Tilda Swinton, who provides passages of spoken word on three tracks, dance experimentalist Matthew Herbert, and folk musician Eliza Carthy, who provides some beautiful violin on the album’s title track. Though Carthy’s appearance is not the only injection of folk on the album. In fact, at a time when ‘folk’ has become synonymous with a person playing an acoustic guitar, it’s quite refreshing to see genuine Celtic folk have such an influence on contemporary music.
 
So, as off-putting as his bullish determination may be at times, when it comes to his music, it works. ‘The Bachelor’ is a near-flawless album, over the top without running away with itself and diverse without losing focus.
 
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