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Apr 11, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Kim Jakobsen-To

After a long hiatus from music, Patrick Wolf is releasing a new EP, The Night Safari, this Friday via his own label Apport. Now he has shared its third single, title track “The Night Safari.” Listen below, followed by his upcoming tour dates.

Wolf had this to say about “The Night Safari” in a press release: “‘The Night Safari’ is a phrase I gave those nights staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep and descending into a wilderness of dead ends and anxieties. The river in the song is a river that runs throughout the record.

The metaphor of the river turning black to blue in this song is one of hope to survive to daybreak. A little folk song sung to the black river of night in hope for it to start turning into the blue water of day.”

Wolf adds: “I built the production around a loop on my Celtic harp and started programming in samples of nocturnal urban animal cries from outside my old Wandsworth studio alongside drummers I’d recorded from the balcony of my then flat in Bloomsbury, drunkenly playing down Grays Inn Road at three in the morning.”

In November, Wolf announced the EP and shared its first single, “Enter the Day,” which was his first new song in a decade and was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared its second single, “Nowhere Game,” via a music video. “Nowhere Game” also landed on our Songs of the Week list.

The British musician was a regular staple of Under the Radar’s coverage in the 2000s and early 2010s, but then he just stopped releasing music. Wolf’s last album was 2012’s double album Sundark and Riverlight, although he returned to touring in 2018.

The release date for “Enter the Day” was no accident, November 11 marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Wolf’s debut EP (simply titled The Patrick Wolf EP), released on November 11, 2002.

Patrick Wolf UK Tour Dates:

April 19 - Cardiff - Globe
April 20 - Glasgow - Oran Mor
April 21 - Hebden Bridge - Trades Club
April 23- Manchester - Band on the Wall
April 24 - London - Lafayette

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