Robert Wyatt
Dondestan (revisited)

If you think Robert Wyatt is a mediocre musician, you have the wrong name.
The era of Rock Bottom "splendid masterpiece and milestone" (I also did a review on it) and Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard are now a distant memory, but Wyatt digs into his sensitive talent and brings forth this magnificent album.
This time he decided to do everything at home, working only with the help of his now inseparable wife, present in all his work, and the bassist Hugh Hopper of Soft Machine.
But what is this album like?

The opening track, the poignant CP Jeebies, a very sad jazz, both in the nostalgic chant it invokes, and in the jazzy music with a languid piano and a very light tear-jerking drum. Let's completely change the subject and move on to the hypnotic N.I.O (New Information Order). The drums are always the same, the classic Wyatt-style drums, played mostly on the cymbals, a hypnotic, claustrophobic bass, then a warm and pure voice that leaps from note to note, entering into perfect harmony with the music, intertwining until it empties anxiety and fears. The title track a funny, almost useless jingle (in my opinion) falls into the banal, and the ridiculous, a song, I repeat, always from my point of view, jars on the album which maintains a much more serious and demanding sound. But let's move on, after the title track ends, another interesting piece begins, Sight Of The Wind, remember Alifib from Rock Bottom? Well, in the background you can find a voice with obsessive effects similar to Alifib, while a free and in turn reflective singing glides over it, framing it all.
We are halfway through the album with Shinkrap, here Wyatt has fun playing with words, and becomes playful and cruel at the same time, with a piano that seems to chase you, until the percussion transforms into grotesque little bells animated by almost evil spirits. Then we move to Catholic Architecture, here the atmosphere is calm, the piano always constructed with the usual two notes, that fades and vanishes...Worship, a song always jazz-themed, remains constant... Costa (Memories Of Under-Development) has a beginning with oriental echoes, through a dark, hypnotic keyboard, then the percussion enters, the voice cradles but doesn't fall asleep, it is soft as usual, while the sounds fall in the finale... We move to Left On Man, the penultimate song, a soothing tune, set to bass and tribal percussion with a chorus repeating the same phrase, a chorus sung by Wyatt himself, then the piece slows down and re-connects to the superb Lisp Service, and here we see Hopper’s participation on the bass, closing this engaging work in a tearful finale, for a Wyatt who has once again proved to have passed the test.