New music from a favourite artist

Being a big fan of music, I always get excited when one of my favourite bands or singers releases a new album. Sometimes it's a bit of a let-down (like Maximo Park's 'Quicken the Heart' from two years ago) but when the expectation is fulfilled, it's a beautiful thing. I remember hearing 'Don't Lose Yourself' by Laura Veirs for the first time, on the radio, just before her last-but-one album was released. Loved it instantly.

Well, this time I'm impatiently waiting for Patrick Wolf's new album. Mr Wolf is a funny one; he left home aged 16 or something, wears all sorts of crazy clothes and is just outrageously talented. He plays roughly 800 different instruments at last count. This album will be his fifth and, judging from the couple of songs I've heard, it's quite a big change of sound from his previous one. Mind you, that's pretty much par for the course with Patrick Wolf! His first album was very electronic, sample-driven; the second one (my favourite) full of acoustic folk, then on the third he went all shiny pop and his fourth album marked a shift back to the electronic, quite hard-edged and almost industrial in places sound of album number one. Here's a song from each one of his four albums, starting with Lycanthropy from 2003:









Patrick Wolf's not that well known so I won't be surprised if you haven't heard of him. I first became aware of him through reading an article on Drowned in Sound, a music review and discussion website. I've found out about quite a few artists through reading about them on Drowned in Sound and then checking out a few of their songs on the internet. Mind you, it's been at least a year since I discovered a new band – recommendations in the comments, please!