The roots of Patrick Wolf’s music embrace everything from PJ Harvey to Stockhausen and English folk music to the legendary jazz trumpet player and singer, Chet Baker. All this started, however, with a precocious obsession in early electronic music. Indeed, Wolf was barely into his teens when he built his first Theremin, one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments invented in 1919 by Léon Theremin.

By the time he was 14, Wolf was performing with pop-art collective Minty. He also began writing and recording with an urgency that caught the attention of an independent label called Fat Cat Records who, recognizing Wolf’s extraordinary potential, gave him an Atari computer and a mixing desk, the tools that helped hone Wolf’s unique production and programming. Stumbling across his mother's Joni Mitchell records led to another insight into the art of songwriting.