It’s that feeling that it’s all a little bit askew, almost distorted at times. And yet not. It’s just Robert Wyatt. He’s one of those wonderful composers and musicians who’s impossible to pin down, put a label on. Thankfully. It’s just Robert Wyatt.
Comicopera, 2007, is divided into three acts. Act One, Lost In Noise, begins with Stay Tuned, a song by Anja Garbarek. It continues with, Just As You Are, a track written by Wyatt and his wife Alfreda Benge. It is a beautiful song in which they declare their love for each other, despite their shortcomings.
Act Two, The Here and Now, starts out with A Beautiful Peace and continous in a much more jazzier way with the fantastic song Be Serious. The steeldrums and saxophone battling it off in On the Town Square can almost give you a feeling of carnival. However in A Beautiful War, the storyteller thinks of how nice it will be returning to base, after dropping the bombs, and see it on film, even with replays and all. This is followed by Out of the Blue wich ends with the lines “You’ve planted your everlasting hatred in my heart”. I found the following quote on the homepage of his record company (Domino): “After the bombing – it's to do with feeling completely alienated from Anglo-American culture at that point. Just sort of being silent as an English-speaking person, because of this fucking war. The last thing I sing in English is ‘you've planted all your everlasting hatred in my heart’. I then wander off round the world searching for different kinds of meaning - whether its avant guard, or revolution, or serialist fantasy, or religion, or all those things. Pretentious or what?! Well I don't care anymore.”
Act Three, Away With the Fairies. This part starts out much darker with Robert singing the first song, Del Mondo, in italian. Followed by Cancion de Julietta (text by Federico García Lorca) sung in spanish. The album ends with a cover of Cuban composer/musician Carlos Pueblo’s most well-known song Hasta Siempre Comendante. Once again sung in spanish. The song's lyrics are a reply to Che Guevara’s Farewell Letter when he left Cuba. It recount key moments of the Cuban Revolution, glorifying Che Guevara and his role as arevolutionary commendant. Allthough this Act is much darker, it is alarmingly beautiful.
The album was voted by Wire magazine as best of the year in 2007.
I’ve included a link to Domino Records, his record company, where you can buy his records. I’ve also included two links to YouTube with videos on two covers; Shipbuilding and I’m A Believer (with Nick Mason, Pink Floyd, on drums). (Sorry, but I just couldn’t find anything from Comicopera.)
Domino – Artists – Robert Wyatt
YouTube – Robert Wyatt – Shipbuilding
YouTube – Robert Wyatt – I'm A Beleiver
Biography
Robert Wyatt (born January 28, 1945, in Bristol, England) is a musician and composer. He is married to English painter and songwriter Alfreda Berge.
In the early 1960s Wyatt and Hugh Hopper formed The Wilde Flowers with Kevin Ayers, Richard Sinclair and Brian Hopper. Wyatt was initially the drummer in the Wilde Flowers, but following the departure of Ayers, he also became lead singer.
In 1966 Wyatt and Mike Ratledge formed The Soft Machine with Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen. Here Wyatt both drummed and sang.
In 1970, after three albums with Soft Machine, Wyatt released his first solo album, The End of an Ear. On this album he played most instruments, sang and worked with tape effects.
A year later, Wyatt left Soft Machine and formed his own band Matching Mole (a joke on ‘machine molle’, French for ‘Soft Machine’), a largely instrumental outfit. Matching Mole made two albums. On 1 June 1973, during an alcohol-fueled party, Wyatt fell from a third floor window. He was paralysed from the waist down and subsequently uses a wheelchair.
He then set out on a solo-career, and with musician friends (including Mike Oldfield), he released his solo-album Rock Bottom. Later that same year he put out a single, a cover version of I’m A Believer (composed by Neil Diamond and recorded by The Monkees, 1966), which hit number 29 in the UK chart. Both were produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.
Wyatt's next solo-album, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, was more influenced by jazz. Brian Eno appeared on guitar and synthesizer. During the rest of the 1970s Wyatt appeared on various artists albums.
His solo work during the early 1980s was increasingly politicised. In 1982, his interpretation of Elvis Costello’s Falklands War-inspired song Shipbuilding, reached number 36 in the UK singles chart. It was part of a series of political cover-versions, collected as Nothing Can Stop Us. In the late 1980s he collaborated with Japanese recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Returning in 1991 with Dondestan, considered by many to be one of his best albums. He followed it up with Shleep in 1997. In 2003 Cuckooland was released, nominated album for The Mercury Music Prize.
In 2004, Wyatt collaborated with Björk on the song Submarine which was released on her fifth album Medúlla. He then worked with Steve Nieve and Muriel Teodori on the opera Welcome To the Voice. Wyatt is both singing and playing pocket trumpet. Welcome To the Voice is an opera in one unique scene, on the street in front of an opera house. Welcome To the Voice was released in May 2007 on Deutsche Grammophon, and features Robert Wyatt, Barbara Bonney, Sting, Elvis Costello, The Brodsky Quartet, Marc Ribot, Steve Nieve and Muriel Teodori.
In October 2007, Wyatt released a new solo album entitled Comicopera.
Recently the verb ‘Wyatting’, named obviously after Robert Wyatt, appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. The name was coined by Carl Neville, a 36-year-old English teacher from London, because one of the favourite LPs for this effect is Dondestan.
Discography
Soft Machine
EPs
Singles
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