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Reviews

Robert Wyatt — Postcards from Italy
(Sonic Book SONIC.028 , 2001, CD)

by Jeff Melton, Published 2003-08-01

Postcards from Italy Cover art

The longtime love affair by the Italian music community with the work and life of Robert Wyatt has long been documented in songs, tributes, and on video. Adding to this body of work is this unusual combination of collected interviews, an exhaustive discography and CD EP with three alternative versions of “The Duchess.” This song dates to the album Shleep and is another of Wyatt’s humorous lyrical pieces. These series of re-works focus on Wyatt’s talent for scat vocalizing within different contexts, a skill he initiated with Soft Machine and perfected with Matching Mole. Walter Prati is Wyatt’s key collaborator here using tape and guitars to create a sonically obscure sound map for the songs to beautifully expire. “Variation #2” is perhaps the most extreme undertaking as one can imagine torture artists Sonic Youth dueting with Wyatt and heating up the atmosphere accordingly. Lastly the third variation takes additional liberties with the lyric again utilizing less of a rhythm base and emphasizing spiraling vocal swirls. The 63-page text covers four candid interviews with Wyatt where he goes into detail on many more subjects than within the book Wrong Movements. What I found especially interesting are Wyatt’s comments with Claudio Chianura regarding Carla Bley and Michael Mantler and the natural linkage to continental opera. Plus the comprehensive discography appears to be the best in print as of the publication date. Overall the quality of Wyatt’s written commentary is of higher interest than the recordings that serve as a collector’s oddity.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 27, 2001 releases

Related artist(s): Robert Wyatt

 

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