‘Bowie-esque’, ‘glamour puss’, ‘musician extraordinaire’ are all adequate terms to describe the style and substance of 25-year-old singer songwriter Patrick Wolf.

No stranger to performing in Oxford, the last time that Wolf played on Cowley Road, the O2 was the Zodiac and he was signed to Loog records.

Doing the rounds to air material from his upcoming album, 'The Bachelor', due for release at the beginning of June, Wolf has taken a rather different commercial direction to the venue in which he performed last Tuesday night.

Since the critical acclaim of the poptastic The Magic Position in 2007, Wolf has eschewed the great-music-making-company-machine to ‘go it alone’ by setting up his own label Bloody Chamber Music and enlisting the help of Bandstocks, a site that offers loan stocks (or Bandstocks), ‘to raise funds for the recording and marketing of individual albums’.

In short, fans have the opportunity to fund musical projects whilst allowing the respective artist full creative freedom. Bandstocks can be bought for as little as £10, which makes owning a small piece of your favourite musician seem rather affordable.

Where once he may have looked out over a sea of baying fans, Wolf must now be conscious that they may also be stockholders, keen to see a return (if not financial then at least creative) on their investment.

This doesn’t seem to have damaged his musicality at all. ‘’Vulture’, the most memorable offering from the new album and set to be the first single, is all raging electric guitar, energy and sparkle in a departure from the style of The Magic Position.

Dressed like an extra from Star Trek and owning the stage in a kinetic and mesmerizing manner, Wolf is the quintessential modern music man.

This time Wolf dabbled with only three of the nineteen instruments in which he’s reputedly proficient, (if you believe Wikipedia these are; harp, clavinet, harpsichord, guitar, piano, autoharp, organ, mountain dulcimer, clavichord, harmonium, accordion, theremin, ukulele, spoons, harmonica, mandolin, viola, and violin), and relied on his support band to do the rest.

Unafraid to give the audience what they want Wolf delivered old favourites, ‘Tristan’, ‘Bluebells’ and ‘Accident and Emergency’ with verve and proved that despite his classical training and overwhelming success he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Struggling with his guitar at the finale Wolf proceeded with an “ah sod it. It doesn’t matter if it’s out of tune” attitude to bring the house down an absolutely stonking version of The Magic Position as remixed by Anvil.

With three great albums already under his belt, the ability to interest Oscar winners in his projects (the voice of Tilda Swinton will feature on The Bachelor), and no one to please but himself and an audience that unequivocally laps up all he can offer I’d say he’s in a magic position alright.

The question remains: was I right to invest?

The answer? Absolutely.

www.bandstocks.com www.patrickwolf.com