Photo: Furmaan Ahmed

Patrick Wolf shares details of new album, offers meditation on mortality with new single “Dies Irae”

Patrick Wolf is set to release his latest album, Crying the Neck, at the end of April, and it features appearances from Zola Jesus, Serafina Steer, drummer Seb Rochford, and Wolf’s sister Jo Apps. As with his last record, 2023’s The Night Safari, this new collection was inspired by some truly devastating experiences and finds him seeking to make sense of the world in the wake of his mother’s death and his own time spent in rehab. 

The album was written and recorded in the Kent coastal town of Ramsgate and is the place where he found a sense of purpose and a renewal of his creative appetites. He brought in Brendan Cox as co-producer but handled almost every other aspect of the recording process himself.

With lead single “Dies Irae”, Wolf hopes to do justice to his memories of his mother. The title comes from the Latin Requiem Mass and roughly translates to “the day of wrath” –though he says that he feels more aligned with it meaning “the day of separation from the living”.

I finished the lyrics as an imaginary last conversation with my mother in her art studio and out to the garden as the evening falls,” he says. “My sister Jo Apps came in the last days of mixing to sing the backing vocals, and in a way, it meant that we could both share a last dance in the kitchen with our ma together.

Listen below and check out Wolf’s upcoming tour dates.

 

Tour Dates:

May 8 – Manchester – Gorilla
May 10 – Gateshead – The Glasshouse
May 11 – Glasgow – St Luke’s
May 13 – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
May 15 – London – HERE at Outernet
May 16 – Bristol – The Lantern
May 20 – Cologne – Gebaude 9
May 21 – Hamburg – Grunspan
May 22 – Leipzig – UT Connewitz
May 23 – Berlin – Heimathafen
May 24 – Warsaw – Niebo
May 26 – Ghent – Club Wintercircus
May 27 – Amerstam – Tolhuistuin
May 28 – Paris – Trabendo
May 29 – Zurich – Dynamo
May 31 – Milan – Santeria Toscana 31
June 1 – Bologna – Locomotiv
June 3 – Munich – Ampere
June 4 – Prague – Lucerna Music Bar
June 6 – Vienna – Theater Akzent

Crying the Neck is due out April 25 via APPORT/Virgin Music. You can pre-order the album here. Follow him on Facebook, X, and Instagram.