Robert Wyatt: Cuckooland auf 2 LPs

Locker, aber nicht sanft: das 2003er-Werk des Engländers, erstmals auch als Vinyl.

Der Sänger selbst meinte, seine Stimme höre sich auf diesem Album an wie die eines murmelnden Säufers. Aber natürlich klingt Robert Wyatt auf dem erstmals auch auf Vinyl erscheinenden "Cuckooland" von 2003 so betörend wie immer. "Cuckooland" ist mit 75 Minuten Spielzeit Wyatts bislang längstes Werk. Nachdem diesbezüglich der mitwirkende Brian Eno Bedenken anmeldete, platzierte Wyatt zwischen Track acht und neun eine halbminütige Pause - Zeit, um das Teewasser aufzusetzen. Doch trotz aller Lockerheit präsentiert sich Wyatt im fünften Jahrzehnt seiner Karriere alles andere als sanftmütig, sondern vielmehr auf dem Höhepunkt seines Schaffens.

Product Information

Cuckooland is a subtle, eclectic, evocative record of beauty and true originality, deriving its inspiration from jazz, diverse music and cultures from around the world, politics, human relations, hopes and fears. It is a finely-crafted collection of truly modern music and is unmistakeably Robert Wyatt. Also includes guest appearances from Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Dave Gilmour and Phil Manzanera.

Wyatt, on typically modest form in the liner notes to Cuckooland, insisted his voice was now "reduced to a wino's mutter". Possibly as beautiful and assuredly restrained as anything he has done, Cuckooland stands at 75 minutes, Wyatt’s longest work to date. After Brian Eno expressed concern about its length, Wyatt placed a half-minute break in the middle so people could go and put the kettle on. Such sentiments suggest cosiness. But in amongst its light-as-a feather brushstrokes and Wyatt’s own muted trumpet playing, is an ire and barely contained anger both at our inability to be humanitarian and the follies that get carried out in that word’s name.

Now into his fifth decade of recording, Wyatt had done whatever is the polar opposite of mellowing. Hearing Wyatt combine such inspirational common sense thinking, with what was now his trademark intuitively baleful voice and beguiling arrangements, was to hear an artist at the height of their powers. (dominorecordco. com)