In the middle of 1973 Wyatt fall out of a window and broke his backbone, during a party. For a Drummer this is, like you can imagine, a profoundly change in life, including genral and musical life. After this event he concentrated on playing piano and organ as well as various percussion instruments.
But the main part of his music for sure is his Rock Bottom is the first album after this momentous event. Various popular musicians supported him on this album and encouraged him to go on. Featured are amongst others Mike Oldfield and Richard Sinclair.
bass. Organ and bass are dominating this song but you also get guitar and piano. The song raises slightly in the end.
"The last Straw" commences in a similar way, organ and bass build a musical basis and Wyatt's voice impends over it. The drums stay discreet all the time. commences and Mongezi Fesa adds some trumpet.
This song is kind of hypnotic due to Wyatts voice and the melody, terrific! "Alifib" is a homage to his significant other and again, a duett, this time between Wyatt and Hopper on bass. In the beginning you just hear Wyatts breathing and gasping over some beautiful, mellow and muted Keyboard sounds.
After a time Wyatt begins to sing, just as alsways, very melanciloc. After the song gets more and more intensive, it saxophone. Nevertheless the two songs seem to belong togher, two great and On "Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road" Mike Oldfield, Fred Frith, Laurie Allen and again Richard Sinclair gathered to attend Wyatt.
The vivid beginning is dominated by Oldfield's guitar and Waytt's voice, later on Frith's viola affiliates. The end is quite funny because somebody tries to tell you something about a broken telephone, drinking tea and some other weird stuff. The song dies away with laughter.
"Rock Bottom" is a timeless Canterbury classic and a masterpiece of this genre. A terrific journey through Wyatt's psyche. It is mainly settled, calm and very melancolic.
instrumentation wich is very Canterbury typical. For me "Rock Bottom" is one of the most beautiful records in my collection and I don't want to miss it. Five Stars is a MUST Posted Tuesday, July 06, 2004, 12:31 EST |
climbing back out of it with defiance as well.
It is a great album helped along by Oldfield's guitar and Richard Sinclair's bass. Vocally I find Robert Wyatt borderline manic and hard to take in large quantities. It is the passion and fragility he brings across which is so tangible even to this day.
Songs to recommend are the title track and the crazy ' Alifib' Posted Sunday, September 26, 2004, 01:00 EST |
A great, one-of-a-kind album with a lyrical sense of humor that is so sadly lacking in most progressive rock. I'm sure a lot of people, in fact most people, would find this nearly unlistenable. Wyatt's vocals and lyrics are an acquired taste, and the music is often deceptively simple and repetitious.
The Syd Barrett comparison in another review here is apt, and of course Wyatt and his Soft Machine mates backed up Syd on a few tracks. I whimsical album to me. My friends and I loved this album when it was released; it was an immediate favorite on our stereos in the mid-70's.
I recently picked up the "Winged Migration" soundtrack after learning that he sings on a couple of tracks. Another Posted Thursday, March 03, 2005, 23:01 EST |
inconvenient paraplegic condition, and additionally inspired by the dramatic circumstances that outlined his past life as he knew it, Robert Wyatt started what album is simply stunning, beautiful: the way that it portrays an air of dreamy melancholy in each and every pore of its textures, melodies and vocal lines, is cathartic without getting depressive, compelling without getting too overwhelming. There is a right until the ultimate relief, when the final notes of the last song vanishes into the void.
Wyatt contemplates his own personal drama and learns to re-value life under new terms: his keyboard layers, his jazz-tinged piano chords and, most of all, his lyrical singing, are the perfect vehicles for this intimate testimony of his heart.
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