By Todd Lavoie
The saddest music in the world? I still haven’t finished watching the 2003 Guy Maddin film of the same name – wherein legless beer-company baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) hosts a contest to find the single most sob-inducing melody in the world – but if such a match were to be held, I’d reckon Robert Wyatt would leave his competition sweating. He’s been practicing quite a bit: the recently released Comicopera (Domino) carries enough emotional heft to even send the bitter, joyless Lady Helen herself whimpering underneath her platinum wig.
Lest I give the wrong idea, Comicopera – as sweeping and ambitious as it is in its depictions of the human experience in the era of the so-called War on Terror (copyright 2001, Bush/Cheney Mafia) – offers much more than just sadness and loss. Any such meaningful analysis of life in the 21st century would be seriously limiting itself by failing to consider the rest of the emotional spectrum, and so Wyatt has injected the album with a considerable amount of whimsy and wide-eyed wonder at how heart-stoppingly beautiful the world can be. It’s a quality he’s brought to his recordings ever since his 1971 solo debut, The End of an Ear (Sony Import) – and even before then as the drummer and occasional vocalist for jazz-art-prog fusionists Soft Machine and Matching Mole – but it’s perhaps on his latest that these juxtapositions are best-articulated. Comicopera is a laugh, a cry, a wince, a raised fist, and awestruck sigh all at once. I’m not sure how many other albums this year can say the same about themselves.
But back to that “saddest music in the world” tag: the first thing you’re bound to be hit by on a Robert Wyatt record is his voice. It’s the sound of a disappointed angel, perhaps – still capable of shining a bright light upon all that is worthy of wonderment, but tempered by a sense of world-weariness and frustration with how we mortals never seem to get it right for too long before messing it up all over again. His frail tenor frequently cracks and wavers around the notes, and can be quite devastating. And the falsetto? Even the most jaded of hearts would have a rough time fighting off the ache induced by a Wyatt falsetto. Exhibit A: “Shipbuilding,” a moving Elvis Costello-penned lament. As much as I adore Elvis – and his version which came out afterwards was mighty fine as well – I’ve always been partial to Wyatt’s interpretation, which became a small hit in Britain. Here’s a performance from BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test: