Pitchfork

Photo by Kathryn Yu

Patrick Wolf just spent "the most inspired weekend away of [his] life", and, like many of these computer-literate types, decided to blog about it. Nah, no tales of yard-high margaritas and hookups with total cuties for Patrick; rather, he and a few friends headed to the country to play an unannounced gig or two and meet up with a punk icon. Kinda makes one rethink those Saturday night case-race plans, huh?

The last weekend in March, Patrick packed up the car with a few instruments and headed out to Laugharne, Wales. He played a few gigs he'd intentionally kept quiet in order to remind him of the feeling of "when I was 16 when I busked the accordion on Hungerford bridge or sang songs in squats or front rooms, where no one knows who you are but just sing and if you sing with heart enough, you'll have made a communication, no advertising or
hype or billing.."

Wolf had been asked to perform a concert in tribute to famed Welsh poet (and Bob Dylan namesake) Dylan Thomas, in conjunction with the forthcoming Thomas biopic The Edge of Love. On the soundtrack to that film, Wolf performs "The Edge of Love", a song co-written by composer Angelo Badalamenti and Edge of Love director John Maybury. Wolf notes that "the song has found its way deep into my heart and that's a tricky thing to do when you've spent a decade mainly only singing your own songs."

While in Wales, Wolf ran into Patti Smith, who was also performing at the Thomas tribute. The pair ended up performing together, and the collaboration has extended even further. Wolf writes, "Patti has and I will be making some music together very soon. On Monday she taught me a melody she wrote about a three legged dog... we have still to work the song out to full completion. Soon we will be recording a little moment for the next album."

The next album? Ah yes, that would be follow-up to last year's great The Magic Position, which will feature Alec Empire, and he is apparently working up now. No word on a release for that-- or the live DVD project we mentioned back in January-- but if Patrick has a few more inspiring weekends like that one, we can probably expect it sooner rather than later.