Cuckooland

About

Robert Wyatt’s music has always existed in its own time and place. But over the years, that distance has become ever more pronounced. He records with an impressive A-list of musicians — Brian Eno, David Gilmour, Phil Manzanera, Paul Weller — that he can beckon simply by asking. The music answers to its own rhythms, its own sense of irony and its own belief in melody. To describe a tune such as “Old Europe,” in collaboration with his wife, the poet Alfreda Benge, as jazz is admitting that it features horns. There’s much more going on here on each level. Boudleaux Bryant’s “Raining In My Heart” (an instrumental) makes an odd sense among the oddly harmonic piano tunes (“Tom Hay’s Fox”) and the peculiar syntax and orchestration of “Lullaby for Hamza.” “Insensatez” slides towards nightclub pop for the introverted set. “Brian the Fox” throws together an extra synthetic bite with electronic washes that give the entire sound a sense of stationary movement. “La Ahada Yalam” is an instrumental of startling grace and wonder.

via Apple Music