The Magic Position - Patrick Wolf

The Magic Position

Patrick Wolf
Polydor Records.

SCQ Rating: 82%

In two separate instances with two different friends, I’ve pointed out this record in downtown CD stores and received the exact same reaction: a slight laugh, some eye-rolling. And both times, I’ve smiled, responding “No, seriously…”. I smile because I understand that by looking at The Magic Position’s cover and letting one’s mind wander a variety of close-minded double-entendres, Patrick Wolf isn’t doing himself many favours in the PR department. Personally, I think he looks fantastic – what better image to concrete a first-impression with this, his third but obviously most public record, than that of a fiery red-haired youth, brazen and unflinching amidst such carnival nonsense? His outspoken, part-time model persona may be all over the record’s sleeves, but the disc itself displays a confidence well-earned.

‘Overture’ turns up the drama with stand-up drums faking a heavy heartbeat, before strings swell in, setting the stage for a voice you’d swear belongs to a man older than twenty-three. Truthfully, Patrick Wolf was likely the best new vocal talent I heard throughout 2007 (I missed his earlier work entirely). The title track and ‘Accident & Emergency’ follow suite with a mix of underlying electronic sampling, giving early indications that this might be Wolf’s first upbeat record.

Not quite so, as the piano-balladry that encompassed his previous output begins to seep in with preface ‘The Bluebell’ and properly manifesting in ‘Magpie’ (with features Marianne Faithful). These slower tracks give Wolf more space to flaunt his theatrical side, and those who were willing to engage with The Magic Position’s cover art will likely give songs like ‘Augustine’ the attention they deserve. On the other hand, those strange segues that connect the middle of this LP are interruptive to such a strong parade of songwriting.

According to Wolf’s extensive liner-notes, recording began for this album in the summer of 2005 and ended in January of 2007. When you listen to The Magic Position from front to back, you can hear how the album underwent so many revisions and re-mixings. Besides the album being top-heavy with buoyant melodies, it gets regressively exhausted with itself in the last few songs. Take ‘Enchanted’, for example, and tell me it belongs on this album. I find nothing offensive about the song itself, but it is too conventional next to the electronic romance-glitch of ‘The Stars’, as if Wolf was becoming exhausted with his own sound. He shouldn’t have taken those hesitant steps backward.

The Magic Position splits its running-time between impractically beautiful song-craft and serviceable excursions into epic-balladry, and in doing so, creates a frustrating experience: you can feel that this album was several shades off being his masterpiece.

Listen to Patrick Wolf here.