Patrick Wolf has always made music that has an impact, and after ten years of doing it, he’s decided to be retrospective and give some favourites an acoustic, orchestral makeover as part of a new double album, Sundark And Riverlight.
Wolf is classically trained and it’s understandable that he might want his musicianship to shine. Earlier this year, fans had the opportunity to hear his fresh compositions in a live, intimate setting.
The rearranged songs worked well with Wolf’s vocals filling the room and the exquisite talents of a small team creating an ambient, emotional feeling to match them. Recorded, these new pieces don’t pack the same punch.
In his decade-long career, this is Wolf’s first all-acoustic effort. For those who know his music well, hearing the new direction he’s taken with his songs proved interesting with Sundark being a collection of darker, emotional material whereas Riverlight contains his more hopeful, happy tracks.
In the cases of ‘London’ and ‘Bluebells’, the acoustic simplicity breathes new life into the songs, however with ‘Hard Times’ and ‘The Magic Position’, the grunt and impact they once held is lost.
Wolf has said that Sundark And Riverlight is a “rebellion against the digital age of Auto-Tune and mass produced electronic landfill music.” However, digitalisation has created some of Wolf’s best work and he’s set the bar high.
Live, these songs are mature and a centrepiece however recorded they lose some of their magic and perhaps are more appropriate for gentle, background music at a Sunday night roast.
