 |
1. Moon In June (Wyatt)  2.
To Caravan And Brother Jim (Wyatt) 3. O Caroline (Sinclair/Wyatt) 4. Gloria Gloom (MacCormick/Wyatt) 5. God Song (Miller/Wyatt) 6. Calyx (Wyatt/Miller) 7. Alifib (Wyatt) 8. Alifie (Wyatt) 9. Last Straw (Wyatt) 10. Sea Song (Wyatt) 11. Soup Song (Hopper/Wyatt) 12. I'm A Believer (Diamond) 13. Memories (Hopper) 14. Yesterday Man (Andrews) 15. Sonia (Mongezi Feza) 16. Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road (Wyatt) 17. Five Black Notes And One White Note (Offenbach/Wyatt) 18. Team Spirit (Wyatt/Manzanera/MacCormick) 19. Song For Che (Haden) 20. The Doubtful Guest (Gorey/Mantler) 21. The Object Lesson (Gorey/Mantler) 22. Arauco (Parra) 23. A L'abattoir (Soupault/Mantler) 24. I'm A Mineralist (Bley) 25. Rangers In The Night (Wyatt) 26. All She Wanted (Hunt) 27. Left On Man (Wyatt) 28. Lisp Service (Wyatt) 29. The Internationale (poittier) |
For a quarter of a century now , Robert Wyatt has been constantly
hailed as one of the truly unique voices in British popular music - Unique not only in the
obvious sense of possessing a vocal style of real inventiveness, warmth and distinction,
but also because his ability to make entertainment matter.
Rock as a vehicle for social rebellion has so often been presented in terms of
individualist angst that any genuine connection with the wider human experiences of the
dispossessed, the disenfranchised and the deprived is generally effected by the narcissism
of 'the star'. The revolt is a singular one, which why is always easily silenced by the
fruits of material success. Wyatt harbours no illusions about popular music's power to
challenge the establishment. "I can imagine and have seen situations where people who
sing songs can be part of a general psyching up for a movement," he once told me,
"but I can't see how it could possibly ever be the basis for one."
In that context, Wyatt's description of himself as a "cheerleader" rather than a bona fide agent of cloak and dagger subversion rings true. Rock has had its fair share of cheerleaders, from an unwitting Presley to the acutely self-conscious Riot Grrrl movement, all bound together in a belief that the power of rock's message lay in its 'noise'. Increasingly , as the above chronologically organised collection reveals, Robert Wyatt has cancelled his subscription to the school of thought that prefers to frighten the grown-ups with black beats, backbeats and even offbeats.
"There is never a simple equation between making a rocket and being dangerous
political activists."
To read Wyatt's career as a single struggle with the force of oppression, however, would
be grossly misleading. He's cherished for more reasons than his elementary humanity.
Although this collection begins some way into Wyatt's career, 'The
Moon In June', gives some indication why the Soft Machine's
reputation for jazz-influenced, psychedelically-inclined improvisation became regarded as
a cornerstone of British underground music. The Image of Wyatt, draped in the
kaleidoscopic colours of the day, taking every opportunity to make up drum solos on the
spot, and sitting in with Syd Barrett and Jimi Hendrix was hard to erase.
Although Robert maintains that he was unmoved by "the narcissistic 'personal politics' of the '68 zeitgeist", some of that era's ambition could be heard in the work of his next band , Matching Mole, who matched their Communist chic (the socialist realist art sleeve of 'Little Red Record' depicted the band as red flag activists) with a belief in rock as a 'progressive' force for change. Less recognised , though, has been the fact that the fan of avant-garde jazz was also a highly romantic balladeer, as 'O Caroline' and his reworking of fellow ex-Soft Hugh Hopper's 'Memories' amply testify. (More recently, Wyatt has played down the band's perceived political radicalism: "I don't honestly remember a single discussion inside Matching Mole about political/sociological generalities," he said. "We had our work cut out just tying to get the show on the road, and have a little fun! I was born too soon to socialise much with the only 'political pop' experimentalists that really moved me: the Two-Tone movement and the brave but ill-fated 'Red Wedge' idea").
Wyatt's accident in 1973, which left him wheelchair-bound , marked the real watershed
in his life that he once imagined his estrangement from Soft Machine
in September 1971 had been. Since that time , he's proclaimed a certain amnesia about his
work prior to that event, and has insisted that his life as a grown-up only really begins
with 'Rock Bottom', recorded the following year.
However, the tensions between experiments in sound and the popular song format were
already apparent prior to that time, although it's the latter aspect of Wyatt's work which
has come to the fore in recent years.
If Wyatt's voice - pitched in the upper registers and characterised by a mild lisp - could, back in the quest-for-novelty decade, have been regarded as a gimmick, 'Rock Bottom', and the circumstances in which that record was produced, suggested otherwise. Supported by his pared-down, but highly effective keyboard skills, the extraordinary textures of his voice came into their own. An inevitable melancholy pervaded that album - still often cited as his best - and sometimes as on 'Last Straw', words became irrelevant, as Wyatt began to experiment with wordless singing, which has since become a chief characteristic of his work.
The solemnity of 'Rock Bottom' didn't last long, though, and that year also saw Wyatt enjoying some chart success with his version of 'I'm A Believer', success that was underminded by an offensive decision by the power-that-be at 'Top Of The Pops' not to allow him to make an apperance on the show for 'fear of offending public taste'. This extraordinary decision no doubt contributed to Wyatt's increasing sense of apartness from the rock business, and after 'Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard', he spent time with his wife Alfie, catching up on the education he'd missed by leaving school prematurely.
Buoyed by a diet of 'Open University' television programmes, and an interest in world cinema fostered by regularly attending the London Film Festival, Wyatt re-emerged with a string of powerful singles for the independent Rough Trade label at the end of the Seventies. Since that time his voice has brought music from many corners of the world to public attention, and he's happy with the contradiction that , on the one hand, finds him searching beyond national boundaries for meaningful material to cover, and on the other, see him remaining locked in his music room constructing new layers of sound to accompany his own songs.
