Sunday, December 27, 2020

Robert Wyatt - The Unknown Zone (2009)

Throughout the early years of the new century Robert Wyatt continued to help out musicians who came to him for help with their music, as well as friends who just wanted to play with him, including Paul Weller on a duet of the Warren/Dublin classic 'September In The Rain', which was added to the 1997 Japanese re-release of Wyatt's 'Shleep' album. 'Afghanistan's A Country....' and DondestA' are reworkings of two Wyatt compositions by Jean-Michel Marchetti for the companion CD to his book 'M4W', while 'Flies' is Wyatt's contribution to the Various Artists compilation 'Plague Songs', consisting of music based around the twelve plagues of Egypt, with Wyatt and Brian Eno interpreting the plague of flies. The title track was recorded by Wyatt, Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera, following a jam session that occurred when the three of them had dinner after recording sessions for Wyatt's 'Cuckooland' album, and the resulting track was offered as a free download in 2009. We close with two songs from an artist previously unknown to me, Monica Vasconcelos, but after hearing these tracks I will be searching out more from her. If there's one thing that strikes you about these two albums it's the sheer variety of music that Wyatt has made during his career, starting with the psychedelic Soft Machine, the jazz-rock of Matching Mole, forays into the charts with 'I'm A Believer' and 'Yesterday Man', his own superlative singer/songwriter efforts on 'Rock Bottom' and 'Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard' among others, the definitive recording of 'Elvis Costello's 'Shipbuilding', and now all of this music with other musicians, young and old. He truly is a renaissance man in the field of music, and you can see why he's held in such high esteem by his peers. The cover of this one is based on an acrylic painting by Sian Superman of Raw Art.



Track listing

01 September In The Rain (...with Paul Weller, from the Japanese release of 'Shleep' 1997)
02 Afghanistan's A Country....... (...with Jean-Michel Marchetti, from 'M4W' 2003)
03 DondestA (...with Jean-Michel Marchetti, from 'M4W' 2003)
04 The Unknown Zone (...with Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera, free download 2009)
05 The Plague Of Flies (...with Brian Eno, from 'Plague Songs' 2006) 
06 Before We Knew (...with Annie Whitehead, from 'The Gathering' 2000)
07 Out Of The Doldrums (...with Monica Vasconcelos, from 'Hih' 2008)
08 Still In The Dark (...with Monica Vasconcelos, from 'Hih' 2008)


1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this....found a lot of unknown tracks....well for me that is....thanks for the share much appreciated

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