Wow…it's really been a scary age since my last blog, huh? I've been undergoing a lot of changes behind the scenes over the last few months while finishing the album. I started writing up some of the credits recently, and for a record that I had planned to make totally within one studio, and to try to sit still for a whole year, me and these new songs have really experienced a lot of drama and traveling along the way. Which is why this final mixing process is almost ten times more cathartic than the actual songwriting process. I'm feeling lighter by the day as each track is put "to bed".
I've holed myself up in Yorkshire in a place called Castleford, no distractions here apart from repeats of Jeremy Kyle and the amazing local 6 year old pop-star-in-the making little Danielle Ling who plays a Hannah Montana keyboard down at the local Chinese takeaway… Kate Bush, I have found your successor! (YouTube clips to follow soon)

Ok, so I mentioned "behind the scenes", and it's really time to tell you a bit of the story. Basically, this album was not and never could have been the sequel to Magic Position. I don't work like that. I tend to finish one creative rhythm then move onto another with each album. Thus, Battle was not the album that my last label wanted me to be making; I guess I'm not family friendly or conservative enough to play that game, and I am getting a bit more fearless as I grow older. Not really been one to compromise with businessmen in my life, so I thought why should I start now when I'm at my most self confident and passionate about the sound of music that I want to create and explore? So, Universal and I decided to part ways. So with album 4… I'm back in the free world of Independent Music

Anyway, thank god I set up Bloody Chamber Music this year, I can finally focus on my label and make it everything I wanted it to be this time last year when I first announced it… I want this to be a label that understands how the music industry has changed beyond recognition year by year since the millennium. That we need to establish new relationships between musician and audience, work out a respect system by that if a musician spends their whole year making an album, putting the hours you would at a full time job, no one would expect you to work full time and not be given your salary at the end of the year… But a musician, who like you, has to have food on the table, maybe support a family, pay rent on a flat, works on an album for a year or more and then the album is taken for free… as if all the goods for your store fell out the back of a lorry and were stolen. Yes, as someone that released their first record just before My..Space and the huge rise in the use of Napster etc… I have seen things change around me and panic amongst many of my musician friends, some having to move to squats, not have enough money to make a follow up album and give up their passion for good.

I think its time we all rethought this industry because for me right now, there is no music industry.

For instance there is no Top Of The Pops; distribution companies, record shops and legendary recording studios are going into administration weekly. The mediocre musical vocabulary of Simon Cowell has taken over the music charts, Hit singles are vehicles for product placement and heterosoc... This is not the world I aspired to make music in back in 1998 when Bis could play on Top Of The Pops as an unsigned band and Bjork, Faith No More, and PJ Harvey were constantly aweing and shocking in equal amounts in the top ten. This does not make me any less passionate about making my albums, despite mad reports that I was retiring last year... (If anyone actually read what I wrote it never mentioned giving up music. I don't even have the ability to give up music. it would be like having a lobotomy. I was just wondering if I could give up publicity, have some form of private life again) I am in this bonkers game till the day I drop dead….

So, with my label, there are two ways to go about things. The dangerous route, that many are taking is to take money from city investors… and then basically they have a huge share in your band and a say or filter on your creative output – basically like being on a major label. Or, the second option is "Bandstocks" which to me sounds the most exciting, and is the route I have chose.

Basically, anyone can invest in a share of the album soon to be released. The more people that invest, the better the packaging, the better the mastering, the bigger the budget for videos and tours etc… the more fantastic the album is… the bigger the tribe… the bigger the battle, and bigger the victory in my language. If you need the finer details then go over to www.bandstocks.com, to hear some snippets of the album, and read all about it! All those that invest get the opportunity to come to secret rehearsals, and to get a limited edition amazing version of the album, get the album first, get first dibs on tickets for the tour. I'll invite you all over for a big homemade Wolf stew and a round of grog when I win my Grammy…

Ever since I was younger I promised myself to look always to the future ways of being a human, or at least embrace the current options at least. This is a brave new world we face. I refuse to let the crumbling industry around me make me have to give up this life long passion and journey I've been on. Although this is album four, I feel like I've only just begun and have great things to achieve with my life. Now, just like at the beginning when we pressed up 1,000 of the Patrick Wolf E.P and sold it hand to mouth, you get to be part of the journey too… Lets get futuristic!

I recently met the actress Tilda Swinton and she filled me with so much fire thinking about Derek Jarman; to me, the greatest outsider and visionary of British Film. I think about him down in Dungeness making one of his last films, "The Garden", With a couple of old Super 8 cameras; no script, no money, and hardly any eyesight, making a true masterpiece. I am from this world of creativity, when you have nothing you really make something… and when you have too much, you often make too little.
Tilda actually ended up being the narrator for Battle. She appears on four or five songs as the voice of hope against all my negativity… The album has been blessed!

Ok, I must go… so much to do! This Thursday I am back at the Barbican playing a few Christmas songs on the piano, I was commissioned to write a new Christmas song… after spending the last two weeks in front of my organ contemplating eggnog, Argos Christmas trees, family fights, Satan or Santa, Mr Blobby etc etc I have decided to write about wanting to give birth to my boyfriend's baby… I would make a good mother if I had the right organs.

Wishing all the love, joy, good sex, and peace to you… Be back with you all shortly. From Your boy in Battle xxx PW