December 13, 2007
With
a bit of help from some old friends (including Brian Eno and Phil
Manzanera) and a few new ones (Paul Weller), Robert Wyatt has produced
what's possibly his most heartbreaking album to date: no easy feat,
considering the many bittersweet gems strewn throughout his 40-year
career.
While Comicopera has more in common aurally with
jazz or occasionally folk than with opera, the album is presented in
three acts—the first dealing with love and loss, the second with
understanding modern life in the Western world, the third with Wyatt
turning his eye to the rest of society, the scope becoming more and
more distant through each act. Wyatt manages to present these themes
with sophisticated touches of honesty, irony, eeriness and wit. Comicopera is an earnest, heartfelt statement from a man, now at the age of 62, still trying to find his place in the universe.
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