Search - Robert Wyatt :: Cuckooland

Ahhh, he's back!

Gary Millstein | Port Washington, NY United States | 01/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you like RW's seventies stuff, swimming in a sea of synths and melancholy. It's all here. But it sounds totally modern and up to date, featuring his most devoted and usual henchmen: Manzanera, Eno and his more current disciples Karen Mantler, Michael Evans. Somebody book some dates for this lot again. Knitting Factory europe maybe?"

Yet another classic

Elliot Knapp | Seattle, Washington United States | 06/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Cuckooland, Robert Wyatt's most recent full-length album, is exactly what I've come to expect from Wyatt's recent work: lush, engaging (but not unnecessary) production full of well-known guest stars, jazz/rock/pop compositions written by Robert, his wife Alfreda Benge, and others, fantastic vocal performances from one of the most interesting voices pop music has ever seen, and a restless search for new and surprising sounds. In a word, Cuckooland is another of Robert Wyatt's masterpieces. The more I listen to Robert Wyatt's recent music, the more I realize how unique he is: essentially, Wyatt is a jazz singer-songwriter--a rare breed, of which he may be the premiere example. A lot of jazz music is focused on interplay between instruments, complex extended harmony, and the thrill and possibilities of improvisation over often 'standard' tunes that have been around for years. Wyatt changes things up a bit, though, using jazz instrumentation, harmony and theory, vocal styling, and the free and anarchic spirit of jazz fusion as support for the principles of singer-songwriter music--a focus on what the lyrics mean, especially sung in combination with music (as opposed to printed poetry), and continual experimentation with the pop or rock song form in order to come up with something new and interesting to support each song's musical and lyrical ideas.



In this vein, Cuckooland is a resounding success, and is even a step forward from 1998's excellent Shleep in song quality and experimentation. The album kicks off with the wry, tongue-in-cheek "Just A Bit," dedicated to Richard Dawkins. The album and song open to gentle synthesizer washes and regular snare rimshots, and something new! Since the last album, Wyatt learned how to play (or at least decided to record himself playing) coronet! When contextualized with his love of the classic jazz greats, Wyatt's move to coronet makes perfect sense. With coronet, he is not only able to emulate his jazz idols, but he's also able to tap into an instrument with great potential for emotive, interpretive improvisation (much more than keyboards or drums--his other instruments), rivaled only by Wyatt's voice in the pure emotion and lyrical depth it's capable of conveying. Wyatt's coronet makes numerous welcome appearances on the album and is one of the fresh additions that makes Cuckooland an exciting move forward. "Just A Bit" combines some gently cynical musings on religion with an ultimately ironic ending, assuring listeners that Wyatt's penchant for humor, amazingly expressive voice, and lyrical skills are stronger than ever. Things get straight-up jazzy with "Old Europe," with Wyatt singing French to a smoky lounge backdrop. The atmospheric "Tom Hay's Fox" features some fine coronet, a creative piano line, and some spoken word from Wyatt, a new move that works quite well. "Forest" is one of the album's most interesting and progressive songs, with help from David Gilmour on guitar and lap steel.



Other album highlights include the paranoia-laden, "Beware," a collaboration with Karen Mantler. In addition to writing or co-writing, Mantler duets vocally with Wyatt on a number of tracks. Her singing sounds fine, but compared with Wyatt's acrobatic vocal abilities, unbelievable range, and ever-changing timbre, her voice sounds a little bit colorless. "Trickle Down" is an up-tempo swinger with a great melody and double-tracked vocals from Wyatt. "Lullaloop" is fantastic, combining a jazzy groove with some comic mugging from Wyatt and some pretty gnarly electric guitar. "Foreign Accents" is very interesting, almost like chamber music with strings and Wyatt repeating the song's short lyric repeatedly, which includes the names "Hiroshima" and "Nagasaki." As I mentioned earlier, this song's great success lies in the combination of these evocative words, and the character of Wyatt's voice and melancholy of the music. Despite its minimalism, the song succeeds in evoking all of the emotions associated with the bombing of both cities in a real and powerful way. The album closes with "La Ahada Yalam," an instrumental of a middle-eastern song that ends the album on a pensive note.



Overall, Cuckooland is a real ride of an album, clocking in at 75 minutes ("Lullaby for Hamza" even has 30 seconds of silence, so listeners can take a break!). Wyatt has managed to evolve his keyboard-heavy 80's and early-90's solo production to still include great keys and some of his always spry percussion work, but to also include lots of other surprising and interesting instruments in the arrangements (like on Shleep) that add much to each song and make the 75 minutes an adventure that never becomes tiresome or uninteresting, whereas Old Rottenhat or Dondestan may come across as relatively homogeneous in their arrangements and consistent use of keyboards and synths. I can say I heartily recommend Cuckooland to fans of any of Robert Wyatt's records (or The Soft Machine, for that matter), though I'd probably recommend working through his catalog chronologically so it makes more sense, especially getting Shleep before Cuckooland. Wyatt's still making some of the most creative, unpredictable, and excitingly original music out there. His new album, tentatively titled Comicopera, is reported to be coming out in the end of 2007, so hopefully we'll be getting even more inimitable music from Wyatt. Until then, Cuckooland should keep us all pretty content."