HopePunk Records

WonderWolf is the darker alter-ego of Gideon Kretschmer, a South African songwriter and producer now based in the UK.

It's an evolving project started in 2016 that created a safe mental space to explore and  deal with life's emotional challenges through his unique blend of melancholic melodic rock/ pop-punk/ grunge and emo soundscapes.

Gideon picked up the guitar at age 13, and started writing his own songs from day one. Over the years he's played in a number of successful bands, toured extensively, released numerous albums and singles, and written and recorded countless tracks for himself and other independent artists, which led to him formally founding HopePunk Records and HopePunk Studios back in 2019. 

A big part of the fun in creating music is the collaborative energy of working with other like minded creatives, and WonderWolf is one of a number of projects Gideon is involved in (check out all the other HopePunk Records' artists). 

After years of playing in bands and writing for others, WonderWolf was conceptualised back in 2016 as his first solo project, and up to 2018 was the primary outlet for all of his songwriting, which covered a range of genres and styles - from acoustic, pop ballads to electro experimentation all the way through to emo, hard rock, grunge and metal (no creative limits or genre boundaries were set). But all the songs had a distinct underlying identity grounded in melancholy and melody, with a natural evolution over the years. 

After the release of his first 3 albums ("The Long Winter" - 2017, "Chapters" - 2018, and "Archives Vol I  + Vol II" - 2018) he decided to create a separate creative identity for each of the key styles/genre directions he experiments with, which led to the birth of his other two solo projects - LAVA SUIT in 2020 (for his softer side covering i.e. acoustic, folk, pop, emo/ post-rock, ballads) and ST. BEATUS in 2021 (his electronic experiments). 

HEAVY. MELODIC. MELANCHOLIC.  

This left WonderWolf as the natural home for his harder guitar-driven melodic creations, covering everything from alternative, rock, punk, grunge, metal, emo etc. This led to a number of new singles releasing since 2020 to critical acclaim, incl. recent singles "We don't belong here", "The Distance" (a collab with Johan Heyns from Far From Who We Are), and "Morning Prayer".  

2022 saw the release of 4 new singles - throwback emo rocker "Vanilla Sky", followed by hard-hitting "Synthetic". Then WonderWolf dusted of 2 previously unreleased B-side tracks from his archive - "Simplify Me" + "Here with You". 

His most recent formal releases were in 2023, when 2 divergent new singles joined his catalogue - melodic rock ballad "Mud" released in April and was quickly added to some massive playlist incl. Spotify's SA Rock editorial playlist, then a beautiful reinterpretation of 2017's haunting balled "Ghosts II" (in collab with Lava Suit) released in June. 

In 2026 he dusted off a selection of 15 rough old demos from 2005-2007 which he recorded as part of  “A New Hope” - a South African emo/alt rock outfit he founded that fizzled out before anything could be released. The songs reflect the humble start of Wonderwolf's journey as solo recording artist, engineer and producer. The songs are super rough demos recorded and mixed in his original home studio (with the exception of a few recorded live in the band's jam room) and the recording and song-writing quality varies quite a bit. But production quality aside - the songs themselves hide a number of magic moments, and captures an important creative period for the artist. Therefore it's worth sharing rather than hiding them away in the archives forever.

Be sure to check out his home page wonderwolf.band for more info and follow @wonderwolfmusic on FB