Send "Robert Wyatt " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 By the time Robert Wyatt made 1997's Shleep-- his first album in six years-- he was something of a British institution: a magnificent, one-of-a-kind singer who'd become mostly known for memorable cameos on other people's records. The popular perception of him seemed to be his wheelchair and long white beard, without much between them. Shleep, though, re-established Wyatt as the center of attention, and became the foundation of his career's third act, documented (along with parts of the first two) by the second new batch of re-releases of his discography.Shleep reintroduced a long-absent sense of playfulness and joy into Wyatt's work. (It also helped that the production was more focused and varied than it had been on anything he'd done since Rock Bottom.) The album starts off with the two wittiest songs in his repertoire: "Heaps of Sheeps", a collaboration with his old compatriot Brian Eno, and "The Duchess", a mischievous tribute to his wife Alfreda Benge that erases language the way his earlier "Alifib" confounds it. Nearly every song on Shleep shines in one way or another: It features a couple of his most elegant melodies in "Was a Friend" (co-written by his old Soft Machine bandmate Hugh Hopper) and "Free Will and Testament", as well as an extended paraphrase of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" ("Blues in Bob Minor") and a little instrumental written by Paul Weller. Its centerpiece is a three-song suite whose lyrics (by Benge) are ostensibly about birds and metaphorically about aliens and refugees: their leftist politics were more effective for being integrated into their art rather than plunked onto it, as they'd been in the Dondestan era. EPs, a box of five short CDs initially released in 1999, is a grab-bag of some of Wyatt's not-really-album-length work. His miraculous 1974 cover of "I'm a Believer"-- which got him on "Top of the Pops" in his wheelchair-- is here; so is his definitive 1982 recording of Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding", the 1984 Work in Progress EP (with a spine-chilling, minimalist version of Peter Gabriel's "Biko"), a tedious 20-minute suite he composed for an animal-rights film, and a set of not-particularly-useful remixes from Shleep. It's useful as a display of how much his solo work is of a piece, but it's also spotty and incomplete: It'd have been nice for the new edition to include 1992's A Short Break EP or 2002's Airplay EP....full text |
| Regator |
| The latest batch of reissues from the British avant-pop innovator includes his excellent overlooked 1997 LP Shleep. The album reintroduced a long-absent sense of playfulness and joy into Wyatt's work, and n early every song on Shleep shines in one way or another: It features a couple of his most elegant melodies in "Was a Friend" and "Free Will and Testament", as well as an extended paraphrase of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and a little instrumental written by Paul Weller....full text |
| Progarchives |
| Cuckooland is the seventh full-length studio album by UK progressive rock artist Robert Wyatt. The album is a rather ambitiuos 75:19 minute long affair seperated in two parts by 30 seconds of silence. There doesn´t seem to be an overall concept to the album though and why it´s seperated in two parts is a bit of a mystery to me unless the intent is literally what Robert Wyatt says on the back cover: "A suitable place for those with tired ears to pause and resume listening later". It´s of course very considerate of him to care about the listeners tired ears but the pause does seem a bit strange to me. Besides the odd pause which I suspect is some kind of joke there´s really not much to laugh about on Cuckooland when it comes to the mood on the album. Robert Wyatt´s musc has always been melancholic yet with a humourous twist. That twist is completely gone from Cuckooland and it´s replaced by bleak melancholy. The lyrics are extemely dark. How about a song like Forest with lyrics about a forgotten Nazi death camp in the Czech Republic which was designed to exterminate Gypsies or how about a song like Lullaby for Hamza with lyrics about giving birth in Baghdad while the American bombs are falling and subsequently having to feed your children valium to get them to sleep at night. What a wonderful world we live in! I´ve never heard Robert Wyatt this gloomy before and while I enjoy his humour very much I actually enjoy this more serious and dark side of him as well. The music is pretty usual for Robert Wyatt. Lots of atmospheric keyboards/ synths/ percussion/ trumpet/ Cornet by Robert Wyatt in addition to his fragile and distinct vocal style. Robert Wyatt is joined on vocals by Karen Mantler on a couple of tracks which gives the album some variation in the vocal department. There are also the usual jazzy parts on the album with brass arrangements. Brian Eno, David Gilmour and Phil Manzanera are the most prominant guests on the album but when you listen to this album you know that it´s Robert Wyatt that is the star. Such incredible talent. He is one of the few vocalists that can really move me whenever he sings. The production is more clean sounding than anything Robert Wyatt has done before. I noticed the use of more modern synths on Cuckooland than on his earlier output which is something I think suits the sound on this album very well....full text |
Robert Wyatt lyrics
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