Update: Patrick Wolf- Who Will Remix, Hard Times Video + Remix

Update: About an hour after this original post went live, Buffetlibre sent through this equally brilliant remix of Who Will. Finally, its great to see Patrick’s work getting some remix attention! This version has a definite disco vibe, with really nifty vocal splicing. Neat trick. Now all we need is a decent remix of Vulture and Count Of Casualty and my life will be complete…

Patrick Wolf- Who Will (Buffetlibre Remix) (Link 2) (Link 3)

Patrick Wolf- Hard Times (Jack Beats Remix) (Link 2) (Link 3)

Patrick Wolfs ‘The Bachelor’ finally arrived on June 1st… the reviews are much better than we had expected- 7/10 from NME, and 4/5 from Q magazine. I personally love the album, for all it’s inherent flaws (strings, overblown, close to collapse!). I just hope Patrick sees some sense in reigning the production on ‘The Conqueror’, the follow up which is due in 2010. I’ve had enough strings and choral backing vocals for a while…

Out of the blue comes a remix (from Jack Beats) of ‘Hard Times’ the second single from the album. This rework is simply genius, affixing a huge undulating synth line and wooden click-clacks to one of the strongest songs from Wolf’s 4th studio album. This becomes the dark song that it probably should have been- bell chimes and hand drums bring in more percussion, always one of the key aspects of Patrick’s albums.

Shame about the official video, which is below. That’s two strikes for 2009- the S&M themed video for ‘Vulture’ was also really disappointing. I can see the ambition but it really seems as if Patrick is firing blanks here. What do you think- the neon/kaleidoscope effect is pretty cool, but as the premise of a video, it doesn’t stand up very well…