Robert Wyatt
Flotsam Jetsam

So it seems it's up to me, since no one has done it so far, to take you on a visit to the small museum “Flotsam Jetsam.” Built in the year 1994 by the architects of 'Rough Trade', it is made up of twenty rooms, eighteen of which are each dedicated to a work, and the other two are respectively the entrance and the exit. The rooms are all adjacent, equipped with two doors, one for entry and one to access the next room, thus offering a linear path.

The circular-crowned structure is on one floor where there is a complete absence of steps, seen from above it resembles the simple shape of a wheel.

The curator of the exhibition is named Mike King, who managed to gather all the works displayed, some in the dusty attic of our Robert, others from collectors and collaborators of the same. Mike King is also the author of a biography or rather chronicles of Robert's life translated into Italian with the name “False Movements” and published by Arcana.

We can now begin our visit: at the entrance, we are greeted by a watercolor depicting a seascape where our Robert is swimming, leaving his legs behind, "head" down, as if he wanted to leave that past of his aside to embark on a new journey.

In the first room, we encounter a pleasant surprise: “Slow Walkin'Talk,” recorded in '68, during the Soft Machine's tour in the USA as Jimi Hendrix's support. Abandoned by the other "soft ones," he's rescued by an altruistic Jimi who accompanies him on bass. We then hear a small excerpt from the grand “Moon in June” recorded in the same premises as the previous one, where Robert plays alone. In the third room, we await one of the works kindly granted by Gary Windo recorded at the BBC studios, where Robert accompanies Gary's sax with the drums; also present are Mongezi Feza and Nick Evans.

It is one of the museum's most complex works, and to traverse the room takes almost twelve minutes of mad wind instruments and guitar. We open the next door and find him still on drums, this time with “Matching Mole” from “No alf'Measures,” a sentimental composition by Kevin Ayers. We then stay in 1972 when in the next room we find “The God Song/Fol De Rol” written respectively with Phil Miller and Richard Sinclair and performed with Francis Monkman. Percussions and Robert's voice welcome us into the sixth room along with Lol Coxill's sax and Kevin Ayers' guitar in a Latin atmosphere. And then we go to 1974 where he sings a chilling tune with Dagmar Krause and the friends “Slapp Happy.” As we follow our itinerary, we find ourselves back at Windo's place where Robert leaves the drumsticks to Nick Mason and only assumes the microphone in the museum's most "rock" piece, which goes fast to transport us into one of the collection's most appreciated works, despite its short duration called “Now't Doin.” In the tenth room, we find “Born Again Cretin,” discovered among Radiotre's archives, aired in a program called “A Certain Discourse.” We are then puzzled by the next room by a rather unusual reading of “Billie's Bounce” by Charlie Parker, and we suddenly find ourselves in the calm of only his voice singing a Thelonious Monk tune “Locomotive” for a brief minute and a half. We quickly enter the thirteenth room where we can sit for a while and freely move in an adaptation Robert made in '84 of a pop tune that his short-wave radio brought home from Moscow.

We stand and pass through the door to find ourselves in front of a TV where a documentary from the Spanish TV3 is playing with ambient background, but we soon get tired and continuing the path we encounter a discreet “Tu Traicion” sung in Spanish for an unknown group, “Claustrophobia.” Then a little more of the documentary, maybe the end credits, to enter the penultimate room where “The Happy End” and Robert delight us with his singing surrounded by pleasant winds, not bad. And so we arrive in the last one that wraps us in joy and hope for a better world, “The Wind Of Changes.”

We thus find ourselves happily together at the exit, where there's a computer on for those who are still not satisfied and want to know a little more: www.disco-robertwyatt.com, hmm... nice, there's an interview with Robert from that same year and the transcription of a radio program he conducted here in Italy, wait for me while I read it, then maybe we can grab a beer.