Patrick Wolf

Patrick Wolf today announces the release of his long-awaited seventh album Crying The Neck due out 25th April via APPORT / Virgin Music and available to pre-order here. The album features guest appearances from Zola Jesus, Serafina Steer, drummer Seb Rochford and Wolfʼs sister Jo Apps. Alongside news of an extensive UK, European and US tour, the dates of which are listed below, Wolf has shared first single “Dies Irae”, an anthemic “affirmation of life” set in the days before the passing of his mother. “Dies Irae” comes from the Latin Requiem Mass and translates to “the day of wrath” or, as Wolf puts it, “the day of separation from the living”. He wanted to write a response to that idea, seeing it instead as a “an affirmation of life in the last days of knowing you are about to lose someone you love, and a courageous - almost rebellious - choice against the misery to use the time remaining to deepen your love or joy with each other.” He wrote it “to give myself another day I didn't have with my mother during her rapid descent in illness” and hopes that this might also help others who have been through the same process. The string arrangement at the end of the song is based on the Medieval Gregorian chant ʻDies Iraeʼ from the Latin mass. The song, Wolf says, completed the narrative arc of the album, connecting the opening tracks with the “death suite” of pieces in tribute to his mother. “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.”