Robert Wyatt
Rock Bottom

Back in 1973, during a psychedelic party, Robert Wyatt fell from a window on the 4th floor. Miraculously, he survived but forever lost the use of his legs after breaking his spine, and from that cursed day onward, Wyatt could not do without a wheelchair.

Definitely not music for everyone, but for those few, particularly sensitive appreciators and lovers of good music with a capital M.
The first rule for anyone who wants to get closer to this artist, I think it's essential to know the first three albums of Soft Machine (Vol. I, II, and Third). And I say absolutely essential! In Soft Machine, we see Wyatt as the drummer/singer and undisputed leader!

But let's talk about the album. Listening to this album feels like being in a dark and lost forest, full of many fairies, some good, some chasing you to wake you from the nightmare. Psychedelic notes are heard by my ears, haunted by Wyatt's inimitable singing, playing with the melody of the music and his own voice.
The soft initial keyboard that opens "Sea Song," seemingly calm and blessed, drags the listener into absolute unease, with the fantastic final organ-like keyboard chorus, as if there were sirens deep in the sea raising a spectral litany of welcome.
This time Hugh Hopper starts "A Last Straw" with a nice bass line very similar to "Slightly All The Time" from Soft Machine's Third, or at least the first four notes. Here Wyatt has fun jumping with his voice from one octave to another, while the ever-present bass rushes to support the piece along with a keyboard intertwined with a melancholic guitar, truly splendid, both played by Wyatt himself: the chorus will win you over. "Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road" opens with trumpet calls, drawn by a keyboard, and percussion, while Mr. Wyatt emits vocal calls, then slips into an unstoppable filtered voice, behind a bouncing, obsessive, eccentric bass. In "Alifib," when the listener is deep in delirium, we can raise the anchor and leave the port that has cursed and enriched our vision-filled panorama. "Alife" opens, sleep is disturbed, Wyatt seems to have turned into a maniac, a desperate one, elves dance and snicker, escape is impossible, the sirens hold you tight, the waters seem clear, but it's just an illusion, your vision goes mad as does your mind, your consciousness is just a confused and frightened vision.

Well, yes.
Everything then seems to vanish in the final march of "Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road," the sea agitates as if it wants to explode, a very original Wyattian Dies Irae, elves dance, sirens spin incredibly as if they were mad, and here is the ascent to the light deep in the sea... a nightmare or a dream?
Hope For Happiness guys, Hope For Happiness Robert!