Robert Wyatt: Shleep ---Ink Blot Magazine

Robert Wyatt: Shleep

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Robert Wyatt,
"A Sunday In Madrid"

at a glance...

Hometown: London, England
First Recordings: 1960s

Personnel:
Robert Wyatt -voice, keyboards, trumpet, drums, percussion, Polish fiddle, bass guitar
Brian Eno -voice, synthesizer, synth bass
Jamie Johnson -guitar
Evan Parker -saxophones
Paul Weller -guitar, voice
Alfreda Benge -voice
Chikako Sato -violin
Chucho Merchan -double bass, bass guitar, percussion
Philip Catherine -guitar
Phil Manzanera -guitar
Annie Whitehead -trombone
Gary Adzukx -djembe

Related Artists :
Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Matching Mole, Henry Cow, Fripp and Eno

Notes:
Robert Wyatt first gained notice in the late 60s when he drummed and sang for the Soft Machine. That group, which was linked to the Canterbury experimental scene that also included Caravan and Pink Floyd, was both stylistically and interpersonally volatile; during Wyatt's membership it produced whimsical pot-headed pop, experimental tape loop music, and long-winded jazz fusion. Wyatt was booted from the group in 1971 due to personal and musical differences. He immediately joined another mostly instrumental group, Matching Mole, but had already begun a solo career when a drunken tumble out of a fourth floor window in 1973 broke his back. Wheelchair bound, Wyatt had to rethink his approach to music. Since then he has focused more on singing, although he has also drummed for Brian Eno and the Raincoats. He recorded two highly regarded albums for Virgin in the 70s, and a series of singles and albums for Rough Trade between 1980 and 1991.

Robert Wyatt

Robert Wyatt
Shleep
Thirsty Ear, Released 1998

Generally the best one can expect from an artist who is thirty years into his career is that he won't do anything that desecrates the memory of his best work. Astoundingly, Shleep is the pinnacle of Wyatt's spare but rewarding discography. It forgoes the musical ascetism that led him to record his last two albums by himself using only voice, keyboards and drums, in favor a subtle, multi-hued palette.

One key to the record's success is its boundary-confounding supporting cast; I wouldn't expect to find Brian Eno and Evan Parker on the same record, but here the former's bouncy synthesizers twice frame the latter's flickering saxophone abstractions and each time they sound great together. The arrangements, which range from delicate chamber jazz to punchy Dylanesque rock, are uniformly apropos settings for Wyatt's gently melodic, marvelously expressive singing.

The lyrics, by Wyatt and his wife Alfreda Benge, use aquatic and avian imagery to contemplate insomnia, politics, and life cycles. There's a hard-won wisdom in "Was a Friend," which mulls over an ambiguous encounter with an old acquaintance; "A Sunday In Madrid" is a gorgeous meditation on travel and family ties, and "Duchess" is a whimsical portrait of a loved one.

Shleep is a singular and gorgeous union of sound and word, and the best pop record of the year.

If you like Robert Wyatt, check out:
Robert Wyatt Rock Bottom
Robert Wyatt EPs
Robert Wyatt Dondestan
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci Spanish Dance Troupe
Nick Drake Five Leaves Left
Pink Floyd Piper At The Gates of Dawn

-- Bill Meyer

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