Robert Wyatt [2003] Cuckooland

[01] Just A Bit
[02] Old Europe
[03] Tom Hay's Fox
[04] Forest
[05] Beware
[06] Cuckoo Madame
[07] Raining In My Heart
[08] Lullaby For Hamza
[09] Trickle Down
[10] Insensatez
[11] Mister E
[12] Lullaloop
[13] Life Is Sheep
[14] Foreign Accents
[15] Brian The Fox
[16] La Ahada Yalam



amg: Robert Wyatt's first full-length of new material since 1997's Shleep is no less mischievous, witty, and poignant. As has become his custom, Wyatt offers a set of 16 new songs seemingly composed for a wide array of musicians including Annie Whitehead, Eno, David Gilmour, Tomo Hayakawa, Karen Mantler, Phil Manzanera, Paul Weller, and others he enlisted to record it. The album is divided into two halves. The first eight selections being 'neither here...' while the last eight are 'nor there...'. What divides the halves are in Wyatt's mind and aesthetics alone, as the disc feels like a seamless, unified whole. From the opener, "Just A Bit," a dastardly yet delightful bit of cynicism directed at organized religion and new age phoniness, the listener hears Wyatt in good humor with razor-sharp political sensibilities, and in fantastic musical form. The songs on Cuckooland are, in many ways, the most accessible he's written since Nothing Can Stop Us. Shleep had its moments in terms of this kind of "accessibility," but more often than not saturated itself in Wyatt's consummate and wonderfully listenable weirdness. Here, on cuts like "Old European," one of five collaborations with poet Alfreda Benge, Wyatt's wife, French salon music, smoky jazz from the cool jazz era, bossa rhythms, and Anglo melodies entwine in a bewitching nocturnal pop song. Others, such as "Beware," one of a pair of writing collaborations with Karen Mantler — who contributed two more fine songs written for Wyatt'set — feature the strident harmonics of post-millennial jazz as it intersects in dialogue with pop forms from the ancient to the future. Mantler's and Wyatt's voices sound lovely together in this tale of paranoia and woe, and Wyatt's trumpet solo is gorgeous. Wyatt's reading of Ms. Benge's "Lullaloop" is a gorgeous, wooly bit of swinging New Orleans jazz, shot through with Weller's bluesy, distorted, electric guitar solo and big, wondrous trombones by Whitehead. Wyatt covers, in his own fashion, the Boudleaux Bryant's classic "Raining In My Heart," accompanied only by his piano, and does a stellar, deeply emotional take of the Jobim & DeMoraes' classic "Insensataez." Wyatt's "Trickle Down"" is a knotty bit of loping post bop jazz interspersed with sax samples from "Old Europe," and killer double bass runs from Yaron Stavi. "Lullaby For Hamza," and the instrumental "La Anda Yalam" (the latter written by Nizar Zreik), portrayt two sides of the Gulf Wars, one dovetailing the other, bringing about with unnerving, poetically moving, and damning conviction, the side of these wars not often revealed to Westerners. These are tomes full of melodic and harmonic creativity, offered as deathly serious as words of elegance and grace, and become elegies sending the listener off with more to think about than a pop album would normally dictate. Wyatt has decorated his own booklet with lively, minimal artworks, and has annotated his songs to document certain facts, locations and occurrences, making the entire package indispensable. Most importantly, Wyatt has demonstrated once again that it makes no difference what else is going on in the pop world, he still creates a fiercely independent and wide open notion of song and composition that is always abundantly "musical," topically relevant, as well as entertaining, provocative, and completely, utterly engaging from top to bottom.
(amg 9/10)

Robert Wyatt [1997] Shleep

[01] Heaps Of Sheeps
[02] The Duchess
[03] Maryan
[04] Was A Friend
[05] Free Will And Testament
[06] September The Ninth
[07] Alien
[08] Out Of Season
[09] A Sunday In Madrid
[10] Blues In Bob Minor
[11] The Whole Point Of No Return



amg: Robert Wyatt continues to follow his singular musical path with the lovely Shleep, delivering another album of considerable quirky charm and understated beauty; a less melancholy affair than much of his recent work, the record is informed by a hazy, dreamlike quality perfectly in keeping with the elements of subconsciousness implicit in the title.
(amg 9/10)

Robert Wyatt [1974] Theatre Royal Drury Lane

[01] Introduction By John Peel
[02] Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening
[03] Memories
[04] Sea Song
[05] A Last Straw
[06] Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road
[07] Alife
[08] Alifib
[09] Mind Of A Child
[10] Instant Pussy
[11] Signed Curtain
[12] Calyx
[13] Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road
[14] I'm A Believer



amg: Recorded on September 8, 1974, this set features Robert Wyatt (post-accident) with a slew of mates, including Ivor Cutler! Introduced by John Peel and recorded by the BBC — only a little over half the concert survives — this is a wild, freewheeling document featuring Wyatt, Cutler, and Julie Tippetts on vocals; Dave Stewart and Tippetts on keyboards; alternate drummers Nick Mason and Laurie Allan; Hugh Hopper on bass; Fred Frith on guitar, violin, and viola; the late Mongezi Feza on trumpet; the late great Gary Windo on reeds; and guitarist Mike Oldfield. It's quite a lineup and an awesomely inspiring performance. Wyatt is in excellent form here, and the bandmembers, who are a bit ragged in places, are nonetheless tight and full of fire. From "Dedicated to You But You Weren't Listening" and "Memories" to "Alfie," "Instant Pussy," "Mind of a Child," and "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road," this set is alternately an early tribute recording to Wyatt and a fine get-together of friends from the Canterbury scene. Sonically, the recording is very present, though a bit overloaded in places, but the music more than compensates for this. All Wyatt fans will need this, as it is as close to an essential document of 1970s experimental/prog as one is likely to find.
(amg 8/10)

Robert Wyatt [1974] Rock Bottom

[01] Sea Song
[02] A Last Straw
[03] Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road
[04] Alifib
[05] Alife
[06] Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road



amg: Rock Bottom, recorded with a star-studded cast of Canterbury musicians, has been deservedly acclaimed as one of the finest art rock albums. Several forces surrounding Wyatt's life helped shape its outcome. First, it was recorded after the former Soft Machine drummer and singer fell out of a five-story window and broke his spine. Legend had it that the album was a chronicle of his stay in the hospital. Wyatt dispels this notion in the liner notes of the 1997 Thirsty Ear reissue of the album, as well as the book Wrong Movements: A Robert Wyatt History. Much of the material was composed prior to his accident in anticipation of rehearsals of a new lineup of Matching Mole. The writing was completed in the hospital, where Wyatt realized that he would now need to sing more, since he could no longer be solely the drummer. Many of Rock Bottom's songs are very personal and introspective love songs, since he would soon marry Alfreda Benge. Benge suggested to Wyatt that his music was too cluttered and needed more open spaces. Therefore, Robert Wyatt not only ploughed new ground in songwriting territory, but he presented the songs differently, taking time to allow songs like "Sea Song" and "Alifib" to develop slowly. Previous attempts at love songs, like "O Caroline," while earnest and wistful, were very literal and lyrically clumsy. Rock Bottom was Robert Wyatt's most focused and relaxed album up to its time of release. In 1974, it won the French Grand Prix Charles Cros Record of the Year Award. It is also considered an essential record in any comprehensive collection of psychedelic or progressive rock. Concurrently released was the first of his two singles to reach the British Top 40, "I'm a Believer."
(amg 9/10)