Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?

oddly enough wyatt himself has supplied* the word (or a word) for this effect = desafinado**

*in an 80s interview, i ?think? in ref to the excellence of the raincoats (tho it's possible i subsequently supplied this in my head as a good example)

**meaning the deliberate pitch bending or detuning of notes and melodies, as made popular in 1959 by the brazilian jobim/gilberto hit (which was an ironic embrace of the term bcz ppl were saying that bossa nova was music for ppl who couldn't sing). tuning that veers away from classical piano tuning is of course present all across all kinds of folk and popular musics, so the term has plenty places it can be used beyond bossa nova

i am prepared to argue strongly that wyatt's (and soft machine's) taste for this effect derives from their experiments with tape loops (which often introduce tuning glitches as a likeable effect you'd want to repeat) as well as mike ratledge's sometimes wayward organ (same argument)*** -- and of course tuning effects are also a feature of the wing of minimalism that isn't reich and glass

***and mellotrons are organs made of tape loops! so it all fits

"as made popular in 1959" -- i mean this made the word popular, i don't think the song itself does any pitch-bending (tho the argument critics were making was that bossa nova's whispery vocal style wasn't proper singing i guess)

You could "bend" the notes on a Hammond organ by switching it off and on again - I'm sure the same was true for the Lowrey organ Mike Ratledge used in Soft Machine. Didn't Wyatt use some cheap (probably) Italian organ on this and subsequent albums?

google says yes: a riviera that alfreda benge bought for him in veinice to doodle around on when they were staying in julie christie's villa as don't look now was being shot (benge was asst editor to roeg, something i did not know until three minutes ago)

asst to roeg's editor is probably more precise but even so

There are some v. interesting experiments with tape loops etc. on the Canterburied Sounds compilations, though Daevid Allen is of course the lead experimenter (Ratledge is an odd figure, always central to the project right up to 1976 and responsible for a good deal of the sound, but never seeming to express his own personality / ideas)

some time this year (i hope) i have a big long essay coming out in a collection abt terry riley which does a little digging into exactly this topic (riley and tape loops, plus who was listening and where they took it all) (it could have done with more on daevid allen tbh but it was already much too long and i was finding useful interviews with him abt that topic hard to source)

(xp) I don't know if you mean there's mellotron on the album because there isn't afaict.

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Thursday, February 2, 2023 5:38 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I brought up the mellotron because to me the signature element is that the tapes get worn out quickly which gives them that distended, detuned sound. which wound up becoming a sought after thing in its own right - I find it very amusing that there's a site (Planet Mellotron) which is dedicated to determining which albums use the real thing and which are sampled. not just that someone would catalogue it but that apparently hundreds of bands are sampling this giant, unwieldy machine that doesn't even really work. I am pretty sure the thing wasn't designed to ruin the tapes but it sure makes an interesting sound. Anyway Rock Bottom has that same detuned sound which you don't often hear out of those kinds of organs. I feel like the album itself is supposed to exist half in this world and half in the spiritual realm and playing these chords which seem kind of unearthly...they're like slightly off, sticking a thumb in your brain...is what really drives that home for me

tbh I think the notes Robert Wyatt plays have something to do with it! He does tend to play unusual scales or else flirts with dissonance, he's always done that.

i mean, he sings that way too

I find it very amusing that there's a site (Planet Mellotron) which is dedicated to determining which albums use the real thing and which are sampled

Run by my brother!

i mean, he sings that way too

― the sex lives of quoll-ish girls (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 2 February 2023 15:06 (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

desafinado!

(xp) Wow!

really? I love that site. I've discovered so much through there. right now it feels like the last bastion of the great personal review sites. next time you see him can you play "The Call" by Backstreet Boys and ask if there's a mellotron on that track? I always suspected there was.

by the way he seems to think there actually IS a mellotron on Rock Bottom - the choirs on Sea Song and some strings during Alife/Alifib.

Matt #2's brother doesn't seem too sure though! I assume the photograph was from the recording sessions for "Rock Bottom" because he did play one on the first Matching Mole album.

Will ask and report back (Backstreet Boys only though)

It's that "I should've said no, someone's waiting for me" bit. very much sounds like a mellotron to me.

half in the spiritual realm

like the *decay* behind wine is what I meant to write!!

Not to derail the thread too much from Bob Wyatt, but to answer next time you see him can you play "The Call" by Backstreet Boys and ask if there's a mellotron on that track? I always suspected there was. - apparently it's a generic string sample. Amusing that we made him play it though, that's even funnier than when I insist on inflicting Perfume on the poor guy.

In all honesty the only records Wyatt plays on that I like are the first 3 Soft Machine LPs. I do feel hugely guilty about my indifference towards his solo career though if that makes up for it.

i wish i remembered more abt wyatt's discussion of desafinado! who did the interview and when, for example (80s from memory but that might be wrong) -- at the time none of the wider context stuck with me, just only that word -- bcz it seemed useful (he's always been good on the politics of the clash between official music stylings, and unofficial, so i can see why this appleaed to him as a move. in the 80s i knew nothing at all about bossa nova, so if he mentioned it it didn't register.

obviously there's a nice cover of insensatez on cucklooland, and you can easily hear how his own vocal style gels with jobim's (more than gilberto's: gilberto is a pretty exact note-placer, jobim is a lot more, well, let's say conversational haha) ... not sure if it "influenced" him even w/o getting into my usual rage against that word, just as likely he sang like this anyway in the come-as-you-are style of 60s pop-making and afterwards discovered there was brazilzian sanction for it with good politics attached

(on the other hand it was around and he was a jazz head -- stan getz etc -- so maybe he was always deeply versed and used it as permission from the outset) (he must have talked abt all this somewhere but i'm evidently googling the wrong words)

Yeah, there was a conversational/direct address realness to his singing, even when getting louder and more quavery, on the earliest Wildeflowers tapes I've heard, and he could have already heard bossa nova then, of course,whether or not any difference (otm re Jobim's vocalizing seeming even more relevant than Gilberto's). Obv. he's gotten into that kind of instrumental groove from time to time, like with the Enotron and Ladytron, also somewhat Miles-Gil-type versions of "My Funny Valentine" etc.

He sang in Spanish on Soft Machine Vol 2!

that's bcz of this tho (brazilians sing in portuguese):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wswhUGb1k6c

He sang in Spanish on Phil Manzanera's first solo LP too (a bit later, to be sure).

he lived in majorca for a while in the early 60s

I think it was me who first posted that clip itt! Anwyay I think the Soft Machine track shows influences from outside US/UK early in his career.

they were always skipping back and forth to paris iirc

however i continue to maintain none of this constitutes proof that he heard joão gilberto pre-wilde flowers and thought "i'm also going to sing like that"

tho he might have done

That's how Daevid Allen ended up getting stuck in Paris and forming Gong. There's an interview with Wyatt in French on Youtube where he speaks French with a distinct Robert Wyatt accent but seems pretty fluent.

(xp)

Kevin Ayers of course moved to Spain in 1970, as described by Robert on As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still

Well Ibiza anyway

& of course there are a fair few Spanish language tracks on Nothing Can Stop Us / EPs box

A friend used to have that EPs box and I remember the booklet (written by RW) - he described the synthesiser used on The Animals Film, he said it sounded like a wasp, nothing like a mellotron of course.

mark I'm not thinking of him as nec. being i-word etc. but just, like all yall are saying, the Iberian/Med and maybe Brazilian sounds of that era were in the air around musichead R and fellow travelers.

encouraging some of their mellow-meldier inclinations

I feel like the album itself is supposed to exist half in this world and half in the spiritual realm

OTM

i mean, he sings that way too

he is the best singer in the world.

My comment was praise, just to be clear

I know, good comment.

i do love his voice, the chat about desafinado gives it some interesting context

this is my favourite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Huwy0Vq5-Ak

Oh jeez NV you got me weeping at 3am here. Yeah his voice on that kills me.

There was some thread several months ago where a few ppl said Robert Wyatt's voice was a deal breaker, that it's too goofy, or too twee or something. Yeah, the desafinado thing, or dissonance, or whatever it is that he does, the emotional impact of it can be devastating. I can't think of any other singer who achieves that kind of vulnerability off the top of my head, nothing goofy about it.

Was kinda imagining this with wyatt's regional accent\inflection.
dora

There was some thread several months ago where a few ppl said Robert Wyatt's voice was a deal breaker, that it's too goofy, or too twee or something.

It put me off for years, ngl. When I was about 15 and had just discovered John Peel he was playing "Pigs" a lot; me and my friend Ian used to find it funny/annoying, it became our in-joke. We'd walk round the village pointing at sheds, vans, pillar-boxes etc, saying: In there? What? Pigs? On a day like this? Huddled up in there? and so on. As hilarious as you can imagine, but I think RW would have quite appreciated this reaction.

It was Shleep that got me really into him, but even them I was still getting cross about trackes such as Duchess, which I thought was whimsical waste of time. I love it now.

Re. the Mellotron, this would appear to be a photo from the Rock Bottom sessions, as it is Robert sitting in front of a Mellotron M400 with Nick Mason, who produced the record: https://www.facebook.com/mellotronfactory/photos/a.975313009206468/3614788971925512/?type=3

It’s not 100% clear to me which choir sound he’s playing on Sea Song as it’s overdubbed in both channels and maybe pitched up, but it sounds like he may be playing the 8 voice choir sound there.

Quite a few BYG albums now reissued and streaming on Bandcamp---I started with Banana Moon, because RW is in the core band with Daevid Allen and Archie Legget, ready for excellent guests. "Stoned Innocent Frankenstein" could be the title track, considering whole set's seemingly off-handed pop-rock flair through the crusty bits*, with attentive dynamics def. incl. Wyatt's drumming and harmonies.
He sings lead on "Memories," which could be a ringer, but fits with other songs' sincerity ("Get Me Outta Here," o yes), and the voice is distant, but persistent, also unmistakable, while the playing is bluesier than his otm "Rock Bottom" B-side arrangement, but sympathetically so. Here's the best audio of the B that I've heard, on Richard Sinclair's Bandcamp:
https://richardsinclairsongs.bandcamp.com/track/memories

And before I forget, here's the 2023 Banana Moon:
https://bygrecords.bandcamp.com/album/banana-moon (Gong's reissued Magick Brother is sounding pretty good on BYG BC too)

*wiki:

In 2003, David Bowie included it in a list of 25 of his favourite albums, "Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie", saying that "it's possible, just possibly maybe, that strands of the embryonic glam style started here."[7]

From Robert Wyatt's son, on FB... 😢♥️ pic.twitter.com/ZQRk4JEF8M

— David Johnston-Smith (@djsarchivist) February 7, 2024