Robert Wyatt
Comicopera

"Like an underwater song sung by dolphins beneath the ocean surface."

And the review could end here, with the words that the author himself uses to describe his latest, beautiful work.

But for me, reviewing an artist like Robert Wyatt, beyond being an honor and a pleasure, becomes an essential exercise in purification, a mental hygiene therapy.

Increasingly alien to Western culture, to chaos, to the contradictions and absurdities of a complex world in which he evidently no longer recognizes himself, Robert Wyatt prefers to look beyond, bask in the affection of friends and family, focus on human rights, and occasionally produce some good work.

In the intimacy of his home, lovingly supported by his partner Alfie and the usual group of friends (Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Paul Weller, David Sinclair, Annie Whitehead being the most prominent names), Wyatt brings together artists from the most diverse backgrounds and carries out his learned exploration of the world.
Exploration of his inner world and the world outside: a sweet yet painful descent into the abyss of consciousness, into the depths of the oceans, only to resurface, letting himself be candidly carried by the waves, by the harmonic undulation of a massive, infinite, inert yet ever-moving body.

"Comicopera" gives us an intelligent, mature, courageous vision of the world, but not devoid of lacerations: between the recovery of material left in the basement for a long time and bold reinterpretations, "Comicopera" is the usual lesson in intelligence and elegance that Wyatt has been imparting to us for years.

 "‘Cause I'm never going to change a thing about you,
(I’ll) try to love you"

 But also a lesson in humanity, we might add, because "Comicopera" is a painful and laborious process of acceptance of the Different, an intellectual, emotional, and empathetic effort aimed not only at understanding and respecting the other but also at expressing true and sincere love for others: in a fragmented, torn world, full of hostilities, mistrusts, and conflicts, Wyatt sends his message, a lesson in intercultural communication and interpenetration.

Just like his music: a kaleidoscope of different emotions and sounds, a rich, painful, and throbbing emotional matter animated by a subcutaneous avant-garde that invigorates it without undermining its spontaneity. And it is precisely this miraculous encounter between reason and feeling, this perfect symbiosis between intelligence and emotional substrate, this humanity acting as a glue for the most disparate experiences that, in my opinion, makes Wyatt's music unique and inimitable, yesterday as much as today and probably forever.

 Even more so because these days there is much talk about Radiohead, it is important to me to acknowledge the merits and value of an artist who is probably the father and most sincere champion of an intimate, emotional, and exciting "rock" that is not afraid to mix with jazz, avant-garde, electronics, and ethnic music, yet never falling into intellectualistic arrogance and sterile self-referentiality.

The album is divided into three acts (and it is probably in this tripartition that the choice of such a curious title is found): actually, "Comicopera" is not Wyatt's most systematic creation, and the division into three moments seems more aimed at lending greater organization to extremely heterogeneous tracks, often only sketched, that float in the mind like scattered notes and then gathered.

Painful yet at the same time playful pages of a diary torn to pieces.

 I

lost in noise

 "In between, lost in noise.
somewhere, somewhere.

In between, got no choice
but to be here,
somewhere, somewhere."

A Wyatt as typical as one can be is the creator of this first section, halfway between the intimate moods and the detached melancholy of a masterpiece like "Rock Bottom" and the jazz temptations experimented with in the recent "Cuckooland": five piano ballads, warmed by the gentle touch of the winds and Wyatt's surreal singing.
The percussion, carefully curated by the artist himself with moving tenacity, so elemental yet so full of feeling, is a true act of love towards his favored instrument.

In fact, all of Wyatt's art is pure emotion: notes that flow effortlessly but are never trivial, always shimmering with a unique and unmistakable talent, oblique, paradoxical, at times ingenious, softened by the artist's typical delicacy in handling the complexity of his emotional essence.

These five tracks, in my opinion, constitute the most beautiful and poignant portion of the work: the opening track, a suffering reinterpretation of Anja Garbarek's "Stay Tuned," not only presents us with Wyatt in the role of a masterful interpreter, but can easily be considered among the most beautiful and intense tracks of the entire career of the ex-Soft Machine.

 II

the here and the now

 "And I don’t believe in willpower;
self-expression’s such a fraud.
I mean how can I express myself
when there’s no self to express."

 The folk songwriting of "A Beautiful Peace", the playful blues of "Be Serious", the noise experiments of "Out of the Blue" are undoubtedly the most surprising episodes, but unfortunately not always convincing, of the second act of the work (another six short pieces), which I consider the weakest of the three. A phase where Robert Wyatt seems eager to have fun and embark on new paths, a lively, self-ironic, provocative Wyatt, but also polemical and bitter. Bitter with that bitterness that comes from reason and critical thought: the impossibility, despite everything, of letting go, the melancholy that comes from knowledge, the impotence and awareness of one's limitations ("And it’s a beautiful day, for walking away. It’s a beautiful day, but not here" recites the text of "A Beautiful Peace").

 III

 away with the fairies

 "Abode of flesh, reserve of warmth,
flavor and familiar smell...
It's the cavity of a woman that creates the world,
guards over time protects it...
Contains the male member that rises and pushes,
dissatisfied then destroys...

 Our world now weak and old,
reeks of spilled infected blood..."

The third act of "Comicopera" is the daring flight of a Wyatt who wishes to soar into the sky and embrace the whole world.
This last portion of the album, composed of another five pieces, certainly isn't short of surprises and sounds like a dazzling multilingual protest, where the English language is strictly put aside as it represents the Single Thought, the overpowering of Global Powers.

And thus it will be a real pleasure to encounter the reinterpretation of "Del Mondo" by the Italian CSI, sung in decent Italian by Wyatt himself, turned into a wayward slow piece for voice and keyboard alone. Or the absurd evolutions on the vibraphone by Orphy Robinson in "Pastafari", a "free" ethnic experiment that destabilizes the album's lazy atmospheres, thus accommodating Wyatt's most Dadaist impulses.

And how not to mention the festive beach settings of the famous "Hasta Siempre Comandante" ("De tu querida presencia, Comandante Che Guevara!"), a classic of the Cuban tradition, here sunk by Wyatt's pataphysical falsetto and the sudden free-jazz gashes that break in at the end. A piece that constitutes the worthy conclusion of an itinerary that ends in hope, in the abstract ideal (not in the cult of the hero!) of a possible alternative.

An alternative that must necessarily be sought outside the Anglo-Saxon world.

 But the most moving track, in my opinion, emerges from the poetry of the poignant verses of Garcia Lorca: "Cancion de Julieta" is a dreamlike hallucination, a sunlit and blurred drift journey in the seas of consciousness. Alienating keyboards, screeching strings, and twisting winds, Wyatt reciting the verses in Spanish as if lost amidst the placid movement of the waves, "like an underwater song sung by dolphins beneath the ocean surface."

Hasta Siempre, Robert!