Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?

The recent live Matching Mole discs on Cuneiform are pretty shit-hot too.

i like everything he's done, even "a short break" and "the end of an ear" (which i listen to with some difficulty). his voice is indeed the unifying factor and it is so inviting, his wordless vocalizing in particular. apparently he can *sing* entire coltrane solos from memory.

i can't quite get into some of the matching mole stuff but "o caroline" is one of the greatest things he's done. manages to be self-effacing and utterly serious at once.

What a fucking wonderful country, right?

What a disgusting legacy. FUCK the United States of America.

jara's songs are lovely b/c they take the road not (often) taken w/r/t political songs, where a story about people living their daily lives, things like love and sex and children and school and so on, connect to politics in these suggestive but nonetheless clear ways. as wonderful as wyatt's reading of "te recuerdo amanda" is, jara's is heartbreaking. i shouldn't even bother to attempt to apply any superlatives to it.

I'm like, at a loss for words whenever discourse centers on the ridiculousness of this place.

Anyway, yes Amateurist you are your normal smart, sensible self. Still, frankly, I can't dismiss people who have politics opposite to my own. Gosh, I'd like to think we all do.

Darnit, this world is fucked, but for Christ's sake some of us pine for the alternatives...

Wyatt rules.

this is a nice thread. there was a doc on robert wyatt abt a couple of months back on BBC4 and he came across as a wonderful person. I've heard some soft machine and i sort of struggle with it for some reason but I like his voice so i should check solo stuff.

and soft machine doesn't even compare to his solo stuff. it's slow, moody, post-prog political love songs. and his keyboard tones are so warm and thick.

i keep passing up this one single of his. it's him and a bunch of south african musicians. anyone know anything about it?

He was closely identified with the Popular Unity movement of Salvador Allende. After Pinochet's coup which toppled Allende, Jara was arrested, tortured, and later killed (along with 1000s of other Chileans).

His stuff probably shouldn't be too hard to find in any Hispanic music store (I'm not sure where you're at, but there's a million such places in Chicago), and on eBay you can sometimes find the remastered CDs from his catalog that came out in Chile last year.

Anyway we're talking about him because Wyatt recorded one of his most famous (and beautiful) songs, "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I remember Amanada").

Anyway, Jason - yeah I believe I paid something like $30 or $35 for EPs as well. Too much, but as I say I had to have it (maybe it isn't too much, i dunno; I don't know what it went for new, but it seemed like a lot to me). It's just a really beautiful package, a nice thing to have on the shelf, you know? Yeah that Animals soundtrack is unsettling, and I've never even seen the film.

I think it would give me nightmares.

Also he was on one of the best singles ever, Vivien Goldmans Launderette / private armies record

Since when was Robert Wyatt ever a "Stalinist"? What, because he sang "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'"? Do some research before accusing people of being Stalinists.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, what exactly does that mean? Wyatt was a member of the British Communist Party, he was a Marxist, he was not a Stalinist.

"Robert Wyatt! I got on well with Robert. The greatest problem between us was a political one. I had been in the Young Communist League -- when I was a schoolboy, I'd established a branch or two. And I was the one that didn't get beaten up on the way to our first meeting. I'd worked with the Communist Party of Great Britain's headquarters. I kind of knew what the party was like. One of the things that appealed to me about Marxism was its anti-utopian foundation -- it was infinitely preferable to wishing that the world was a nicer place, or that Robin Hood was elected sheriff. But through reading a lot of theory and working for the party, I thought, 'This ain't for me,' whereas Robert was getting more into it. I really liked him, but that was the principal reason for drifting apart: he was getting more Stalinist and I wasn't."

Anyway, why is it only Robert Wyatt who is hauled over the coals for having been a Marxist when other musicians like the various members of Henry Cow or AMM aren't? (I say having been a Marxist, but as far as I know, at least two-thirds of AMM still are Marxists.) I haven't heard anyone bring up Fred Frith's politics lately - least of all Fred himself. And let's face it, there's far worse things you could be than a Marxist: a Tory or a Republican or "New Labour" for instance.

do some research before you accuse people of being new labour

i have a deep respect coupled with a bit of bemused exasperation re. robert wyatt. he reminds me of a lot of people i knew growing up.

the album is very melancholic--it's the urgent combination of melancholy and whimsy (blended such that you often can't tell them apart) that is a big part of what makes this record so special to me. the wordless vocalizing at the end of the first track (??) is one of the most powerfully ... desolate stretches of music i know. such things are in the ear of the listener, of course. but considering the circumstances under which it was made it's not hard to imagine depression being one of many states that is being evoked in rock bottom.

i have a long and intense history w/this record (incl. listening to it in venice where wyatt composed much of the music)...

x-posts

this one will never not slay me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huwy0Vq5-Ak

Thanks, I relate to all of that, although your experience goes deeper--wish I'd been listening to him at 21!

― dow

ahhh, well, there was a lot i missed out on by spending my late teens and early 20s focused entirely on "classic rock" and "prog rock", but it's good to know i didn't miss everything. wyatt wasn't really "prog rock" or "classic rock", but he was adjacent enough that i heard him relatively early on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEEX3uRJyo4

I don't think Cuckooland is one of his most loved albums, but I love it. Forest is a powerful Romani holocaust song and has really beautiful lyrics by Alfreda. It makes me well up every time.

The other thing that I am aware of personally is June of 1968. Which seems to have been a significant event, and I don't know how that affected the music TV shows, but God, it must have, right?

You mean May? Yes, the French are good at archiving stuff (cf. the BBC).

Yes, Paris in May, Moon in June

l

I don't think Cuckooland is one of his most loved albums, but I love it. Forest is a powerful Romani holocaust song and has really beautiful lyrics by Alfreda. It makes me well up every time.

Thanks, I relate to all of that, although your experience goes deeper--wish I'd been listening to him at 21!
― dow

It doesn't seem like this has been posted before, but I loved it. One hour doc from 1998, Italian made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z5zy6MaFtI

missed this. heartbreaking

Friend of mine managed to end up backstage at a Patti Smith concert (in the Southbank probably?) Verlaine might have been there and Gillespie almost certainly was and various other luminaries. He said everyone there were complete arseholes and then he noticed a guy sitting (he thought) in a corner, pint of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, covered in ash. He went over to talk to him and it was Robert Wyatt and he was like, "What do you make of all this?" and he was basically the only genuine person in the room.

^exactly as you would expect

Robert Wyatt is the best <3
Wish him all the love

this sux :(

Patti Smith, Verlaine weren't genuine enough, or weren't in the room? Oh well.
Just came across this pitch to Whiney G., for long-gone Paper Thin Walls, which was text x streaming, quite the thing in '07:

re: mixtape possibilities for year-end special issue coverage
Wed, 31 Oct 2007

Ends up being surprisingly hard to pick the order of preference. But
in terms of the vibe, the degree to which I think I know how to
describe it adequately(at least as I begin writing this), the musical
excellence on first listen (the chances of it grabbing the jaded
webears right off, or at least during first listen, cos I doubt most
things get more than one chance at most, in terms of attention to the
whole playing time), I guess first choice is Robert Wyatt's "Cancion
de Julieta." It's built on, travels on an upright bass riff, which
carefully adjusts itself, then tilts forward, like a rocking horse
that almost gets stuck on a surreal extention of a bent (fifth?) some
blues note or I should say blooooues note, groaning a little,
deliberately distended, before the last note, before the rocking horse
pilgrim tilts back into place. And Wyatt sings the same note, same
phrase, much higher like a little old man with a hole in his head and
the air pushing out and in, which is true of course, like a little old
man in a poem or a play, under the radar o trying to be that way, in
his mask (from Comicopera, and Wyatt explains he means it in the very
old school sense, the other side of tragedy, but useful, a working
piece of uniform), his parody, with the well-timed well-pulled tear in
his blues, giving just enough pause to the listener (and even a
sympathetic listener can stop listening if the music seems too
familiar, like this track never does; I keep listening to hear what
happens next, even though I "basically" or schematically know, but
it's the feeling of the listening experience that matters here, like
it always should). Also, it's not just a mask etc in the defensive
sense, or defensive in the wait for 'em to come at you sense; the
little old rocking horse rider isn't just finding away to keep his
place, he's somehow pushing forward, each repetition of the basic riff
brings some other sounds too, which suggest he's breaking into
something, pushing forward, into wreckage, the hull of a galleon maybe
(kind of an underwater moonlit quality). The bass player is also using
his bow, and overdubbing violins, scrabbling at the push, in the
push.(Wyatt also plays some kind of keyboard, percussion, pocket
trumpet, all in the arc and pull and push of the sway of the note).
"Un mar de sue-eh-eh, no. Un mar de tierra blanca," so not just
aquatic and doesn't just sound aquatic, but like he's entering the
water, rocking back and forth and forward. Sleepwalker? They can do a
lot. Not exactly sure all I'd say about this, but something where
listeners might be led toward making their own connections, if they
want, to any possible deeper waters. It's just the damndest track, is
all, first listen every listen. When you ask for these, you'll mention
the need for the artist to answer a few questions, right? I'm little
insecure about Wyatt doing this, but judging by the amount and variety
and quality of interviews, documentary material etc online, he's
fairly into doing media, or anyway he does it.

Even though it's not that far from some of my ravings that he did publish.

what a selfish and clueless reason to bump this thread, words fail me

Trying to describe one the most amazing tracks I've ever heard? Meant as a tribute to RW, not myself. should have let the music do the talking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUBFqj6h6zw

well i think what you wrote is sweet dow.

fair enough, I'm just cranky, ignore me

no prob, thanks yall. That's all I got in the stash about Wyatt, and any new takes will be shorter, at least.

https://thebluemoment.com/2024/07/01/on-visiting-a-friend/

:)

Do love him mid 70s Rock Bottom, Drury Lane and with Henry Cow.
& the stage before where he was with Matching Mole and the stage before that with Soft Machine.

May like him a bit later too. Think I may have picked up a few more titles in FOPP a few years back.

But Matching Mole are so great.

The biography from about 10 years ago was quite good.Different Every Time

harrumphing a bit that williams thinks the band is called "the soft machine"

first alb is the soft machine by the band "soft machine" IMO; second is the soft machine: volume two, also by soft machine

any printed artefact to the contrary is a typo caused by drugs and the hippie slackness endemic to the times qed

The biography from about 10 years ago was quite good.Different Every Time

'k, dow expressed interest in reading this piece i wrote in december 2022... link should be active for about one month. :)

https://pastebin.com/eJnVVVPE

Thanks! several of his and your comments are startling glimpses of the truth-go-round, new 'uns for me.
Listening to all those unearthed, bandcamped live Softs sets upthread, plus considering the way their studio albums were going, with all those industrious instrumental studies, I was glad he left (however it happened), and regained breathing room to sing, with Matching Mole and others. Even though his thoughts went floating back and around, like his sound.