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Eps By Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt
Eps By Robert Wyatt
Genres: Jazz, Special Interest, Pop, Rock
 
  •  Track Listings (5) - Disc #1
  •  Track Listings (5) - Disc #2
  •  Track Listings (4) - Disc #3
  •  Track Listings (1) - Disc #4
  •  Track Listings (4) - Disc #5

Robert Wyatt is gifted with a voice that is as distinctive and subtle an instrument as Billie Holiday's or Frank Sinatra's; it nimbly prances through alien alto registers with ease, achieving notes few singers can even dre...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Robert Wyatt
Title: Eps By Robert Wyatt
Members Wishing: 4
Total Copies: 0
Label: Thirsty Ear
Release Date: 3/9/1999
Genres: Jazz, Special Interest, Pop, Rock
Styles: Avant Garde & Free Jazz, Experimental Music, Progressive, Progressive Rock
Number of Discs: 5
SwapaCD Credits: 5
UPC: 700435706224

Synopsis

Amazon.com
Robert Wyatt is gifted with a voice that is as distinctive and subtle an instrument as Billie Holiday's or Frank Sinatra's; it nimbly prances through alien alto registers with ease, achieving notes few singers can even dream of reaching after puberty. The songs on EPs' first three discs are predominantly cover versions. Wyatt is a keen interpreter of other artists' music: "Biko," "Shipbuilding," "I'm a Believer," and "Round Midnight" do the originals more than justice. This earnest English gentleman's best material has always been in the service of pop-based music, strengthened by a strongly political (but nondidactic) bent. That said, the fourth disc is a bit jarring. It is the soundtrack to an animal rights film and Wyatt's notes hypothesize that it would be immoral "to make easy listening music for such nasty imagery." The fifth, least interesting CD has doodley remixes of tracks off Wyatt's Shleep. No less than Brian Eno, Hugh Hopper, Fred Frith, and Mongezi Feza accompany the noble singer-songwriter. --Mike McGonigal
 

CD Reviews

Only Robert Wyatt Can Do This
undeletablearchive | Hove, East Sussex United Kingdom | 05/27/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a superb collection. It's not just an outtakes/alternate takes/odds'n'sods set. It brilliantly catalogues Robert's history, compressing it into 5 short, absolutely essential CDs gorgeously packaged by Alfreda Benge and stacked inside a lovely plasticised blue box. CDs 1-3 are uniformly excellent, documenting Robert's sophisticated pop period ('I'm A Believer'; 'Shipbuilding'), followed by some of his overtly political material. 'Pigs... (In There)' is a short docu-drama of animal rights outrage, done without any hectoring or proselytising; just an innocently human, incredulous 'Pigs?... In THERE?' repeated over and over. Simple, unassuming, but deeply, deeply affecting. CD 4 presents the eerie, disoriented music of 'The Animals Film': thinly produced, solarized, insomniac, frazzled. There is real suffering here. After all this, though, it's Disc 5 that really drops your jaw. This is - wait for it - a set of techno remixes of some key tracks from 'Shleep'. 'Shleep' is already the best progressive rock record of the last 20 years; but these tracks, ProTooled to perfection with dark ambient textures, dubscapes, and sophisticated beats, boost Wyatt the Artist straight into the stratosphere, as far as I am concerned. This CD reinvents the progressive rock genre, showing with absolute grace how current forms can reframe mature concerns for modern consumption. Robert would probably shrug and tell us it was just an experiment and anyway he didn't have much to do with it. How Robert Wyatt. How... refreshing. Buy this CD, because only Robert Wyatt (a genius who would look at his shoes if you said so) Can Do This."