Robert Wyatt
A Short Break

THE REVIEW

"Is every single moment forever?"

With this "short break" dated 1996, Robert Wyatt offers us five extremely delicate sound episodes with a total duration of about twenty minutes, entirely recorded by him without any assistance, at his summer residence in 1992. Listening to them feels like flipping through an old photo album, slightly faded and in black and white, the same ones that are actually presented to us within the booklet by Wyatt himself. The words of the lyrics are few, minimalist like the melody that cradles them, simple questions that are not easy to answer; some essential vocalizations in the background of the well-known piano played here more delicately than ever, barely jazzy rhythms and atmospheres dense with melancholy and intensity. Few instruments but very eloquent.

Twenty minutes during a vacation, imbued with the sea and saltiness, deep introspection, and poetry. Altogether, it seems his intention was the precise desire and need to send even a brief message after about two years of silence since his last work ("Flotsam Jetsam" - 1994) but above all since the release of the last album acclaimed by critics and considered by many as one of his masterpieces, "Dondestan" (1991), from which it differs for a broader sound while maintaining the same subdued tones, at times slightly dark.

Despite being a somewhat dated work, it remains one of the pearls of my collection, a sort of temporal suspension, a pause that I sometimes love to take to carve out a corner away from the chaos and the relentless rush of everyday life.

A short break, indeed...