Cuckooland was especially welcome coming six years after his last full length Shleep, also an excellent release. Not a huge departure from Shleep, Cuckooland contained the usual collaborations (Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Phil Mazanera, and Wyatt's wife Alfreda Benge supplying both artworks and co-writing credits). However, Wyatt lovers want nothing but the same jazz tinged melodies, beautiful high pitched vocal, intelligent lyrics that combine the political, philosophical and personal in a way that characters like Billy Bragg can't approach, and most songwriters wouldn't even try.
Listening back to this era of Wyatt's music it is also interesting how he can make startling use of keyboard sounds and timbres that other more fashionable artists wouldn't have touched with a barge-pole due to their supposed in-authenticity like synth washes and tinkles most associated with 80's new age music and big Pop productions. It occurs that Wyatt simply used any sound making technology available and found good use for it, also he never stopped using this stuff, due to any return to the source movements, but simply embraced sound in a kid/sweet shop approach that is commendable and reminds me of Prince. The artists of the hypnogogic scene such as, Oneohtrix Point Never and James Ferraro were at the start of this decade being hailed for rescuing unfashionable and hated synth sounds, and making then listenable and interesting again. Wyatt never had this problem, as his innate way with a song and musical imagination means that he could surely produce beauty with any musical means available to him.
So to describe the music therein, I shall make my attempt:
Just A Bit is dedicated to Richard Dawkins and reaffirms Wyatt's atheism, although instead of using Dawkins aggressive anti religion, Wyatt's sounds a much harder path to non belief, each verse saturated in atheism defying sweetness, and at each melancholic dismissal of God and superstition you feel aware that hope becomes more elusive and intangible.
Old Europe evokes 1950's Paris, specifically Paris' love affair with jazz. Miles Davis' extended Parisian vacation and affair with Juliette Greco. Wyatt's first love was jazz, and this album is filled with jazz instrumentation. Don't forget, Soft Machines initial aims largely involved grafting a jazz sensibility into pop thereby helping birth psychedelia. Wyatt has got better with age however, and at this stage is the equal of heroes like Miles Davis and The Beatles. He has a similar melodic inventiveness and taste of a UK Joni Mitchell, but unlike her has remained interesting.
Tom Hay's Fox contains synth tones that in 2003 was only used by drum 'n' bass producers for the 2min intro and inevitable breakdown section!
Forest is a significant work, featuring old friends Eno and Gilmore (who these days both need Wyatt's touch to produce magic). This Grimms fairy-tale nightmare follows a gypsy girl in her trials from Czech Republic persecution, to danger filled travel to an unwelcoming Dover. Backing vocals and guitar build ominously like so many branches enclosing her.
Beware continues the foreboding feel, with an smiling faces style warning, of the inherent un-trustworthiness of people. Great trumpet and drum breaks on this one, if isolated would make great sample material.
Cuckoo Madame and Raining In My Heart is more bittersweet sadness perfectly suited to Wyatt's humanist sensibility. The standard, Raining In My Heart is instrumental with lyric printed on the sleeve, I believe the intention is for listeners to sing along.
Lullaby For Hamza ends the first half with further solemnity. Hamza was a child born as the first bombs dropped in the first Gulf war, damaging the hospital in which Hamza was born. This song then is written, inspired by a letter from Hamza's mother expressing concern on how the second war would affect him, the lullaby swing in the track feels different when faced with data on the amount of children who are prescribed Valium to aid sleep in Baghdad due to bombing trauma, 'the worlds gone wrong again, I need a lullaby'. Of course, Wyatt can make all this trauma sound like bliss wrapped up in trombone and accordion.
This track is then proceeded on the CD versh by 30 seconds of silence 'for those with tired ears to pause and resume listening later' how considerate Robert!
Trickle Down looks inward again, thinks about the act of listening, and might reference Wyatt's accident which left him unable to stand, with lines like 'press on your window, why some people float sometimes are floored'.
Insensatez is a bossanova Jobim cover, and a heart-breaker duet with Karen Mantler, daughter of jazz singer Carla Bley.
Mister E utilizes those synth tones again, which may even be the pan-pipe setting! Remarkably Wyatt makes it sound cool.
Lullaloop features Paul Weller on guitar, and is written by Alfreda. Funny and tender, this album highlight features Wyatt as a grumpy old man complaining about the noise, 'night's for lying down'.
Foreign Accents uses circular blocks of repeated motifs 'Hiroshima / Nagasaki / Avigato / Konnichiwa / Vanunu / Mossadegh', the last four words meaning, thank you, hello, the surname of an politically imprisoned Israeli scientist who leaked details of stockpiles of nuclear weaponry, and the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister ousted by British/American secret services only to be succeeded by 25 years of pro western 'oil friendly' dictatorship. This track works in a hypnotic Phillip Glass/Terry Riley style.
Brian The Fox puts to great use Wyatt's delicate vocals in long tones, stretched until you can hear the grain of his voice beginning to crack.
La Ahada Yalam (No-One Knows) finishes this album and massive accomplishment, continuing the themes of the human tragedy of war, with an Arabic instrumental dripping in middle eastern trauma.
Even without the themes and thinking behind Wyatt's work (which definitely enrich it), his music can be enjoyed as simply beautiful on it's own terms, and this is what makes this album so special, I never tire of hearing it.
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