SHLEEP
Robert Wyatt
•Canterbury Scene
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3.87
| 171 ratings | 11 reviews | 25% 5 stars
Excellent addition to any |
Studio Album, released in 1997 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Heaps of Sheeps (4:56) - Robert Wyatt / vocals, keyboards, trumpet (3,4,8,11), bass (1,4,6,8,9), Polish fiddle (2), percussion, producer (excl. 1)
Artwork: Alfreda Benge with Phil Smee (layout) and to projeKct for the last updates Edit this entry |
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ROBERT WYATT Shleep ratings distribution
(171 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(25%)Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(49%)Good, but non-essential (22%)Collectors/fans only (4%)Poor. Only for completionists (1%)
ROBERT WYATT Shleep reviews
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Collaborators/Experts Reviews
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
By the end of the 90's, Wyatt had left rough Trade to join 60's legend Joe Boyd's label Hannibal records and this was good news for Wyatt, as he would produce some much more inventive records than OR or Dondestan. Recorded in Manzanera's studios with a batch of usual suspects, a few unknown newcomers, plus some surprising appearances such as Belgian JR/F guitarist Philip Catherine and The Jam's Paul Weller. With an Alfie booklet illustration throughout, the Sleep happens to be a delightful walk through the event of Wyatt's life at that moment.
And to say that Shleep had not started well, beginning with the album's weakest song, a Gabriel-esque tune, where Eno adds pop touches not really fitting Robert's personae. Much Wyatt-er is Duchess, filled with gurgling/bubbling/seesawing noises (courtesy of Eno), with Parker's (not Bird, you wisearse) difficult sax and Robert's unsettling piano. The album really starts with the mesmerizing Maryan, a superb Catherine-Wyatt composition, where Wyatt gives a Spanish twist with his trumpet, while Sato's violin is jerking tears from you. Emotions ala Rock Bottom; and it's not about to change with the poignant Was A Friend (Hopper co-writes with Robert). Past the strange intro, Wyatt's voice directly takes you to lands abandoned over two decades ago, with Robert playing all instruments. Last Straw is just around the bend, here!!! Awesome. The power of evocation is overwhelming, as you cannot help but thinking of RB in the lengthy sustained finale...The following Free Will & Testament didn't stand a chance matching the predecessor's dramatic greatness, but Paul Weller pulls a good Gilmour-ian guitar, while Wyatt contributes piano, organ and emotions.
Sept 9th is a mostly instrumental song with the returning Whitehead (remember RISTR?) and Parker adding dramatic horns to an already emotion-filled track. Again we are nearing the sublime of RB, with Whitehead's trombone wracking your guts out. Alien is again striking n the same area of your brains, Manzanera pulling a superb guitar solo over impeccable percussions and Merchan's fabulous bass. Wyatt's emotional voice again reminds of the poignant album resulting of that accident that put him a quarter a century ago in a wheelchair. The short Out Of Season has rob doing the whole instruments, except for Whitehead's trombone drones and is again aiming directly into your soul. Based on an Alfie visit to her parents in Spain, Sunday In Madrid has some stunning moments, with Eno's quiet synth underlines giving some excellent background tension (a bit reminiscent of Van Morroson's St Dominic's Preview), while Wyatt's constant wordy vocals is amazing. But nothing compared with his rap (that's right Robert raps superbly!!!!!) in the awesome Blues In Bob Minor. With Weller pulling some splendid guitar lines, if progheads ever had a problem with rap, BIBM might just be the key to open that door. A phenomenal bet successfully achieved, the album can only lets itself die out with the short Weller-penned instrumental Whole Point Of No Return, a dreamy drone where a trumpet evades to heaven.
Yes, Robert was on a creative high at this point, further help by the movie Little Red Robin Hood, produced by Italian enthusiasts DiLoretto and Bevilacqua, doing a documentary on Robert's activities. Shleep is definitely one of Wyatt's high point, the highest since Rock Bottom for sure and it'll take a complete miracle for him to top Shleep in terms of pure inventiveness. Sleep is just missing on the fifth star, because of a weak bonus track and a shaky start, but outside that, it's really a wonderful trip into Robert's brains.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
Oddly enought, the pieces I enjoyed most on this album weren't really the most proggy ones. Free Will And Testament is a totally brilliant Lennon-esque song and Heaps Of Sheeps is a cheery ditty that actually reminds me of a Blondie song from time to time (you wouldn't believe me if I told you it was Heart Of Glass, would you?). Maryann is a languid folky reverie with a great violin solo stuck in the middle (and enough of those quirky melodic changes to keep you from getting lost inside the song). The highlights from a prog point of view would probably be the jazzy, largely instrumental September The Ninth and the dark Latin-inflected piece Alien.
Other songs of note include The Duchess, which borrows from the Grand Old Duke Of York to create a strange dysfunctional nursery rhyme, Was A Friend (which kicks off with a wierd little excerpt from another track I can't identify) and the strangely New-Wave sounding (I think the synth drum sound is probably responsible) Blues In Bob Minor, although I must confess that this album ran on a little bit too long to sustain my interest.
I have perhaps been a little harsh on my overalll rating of this album in that I think the material is generally impressive, but that it's more important that one visits his early 70s albums, both solo and with Soft Machine and Matching Mole, before coming here. I think this album is one of the finest to emerge from the generally barren 90s but having heard so much of what the great man has done before, it's hard to call this one anything except good, but non-essential. ... 58% on the MPV scale.
PROG REVIEWER
The career of Robert Wyatt is spawning more than three decades but little albums were released in that time. As I listen to his album only once in a while, one release in seven years may be enough. Also this enables him to keep the quality of his compositions constantly high. Wyatt's high voice may sound strange at first but after you get used to it, it becomes quite appealing. More than once this sounds quite chaotic but when you take a good listen you'll realize it's not. The compositions seem to be well crafted musically, more than once the combination of instruments are combined in a mathematical way. Strange enough this doesn't mean there's no emotion, it breaths emotion mainly due to the vocals. But it's never getting pathetic in any sense. Even though "Shleep" isn't sounding old fashioned the atmospheres are quintessential mid seventies ; the sound refers to the time when "Rock bottom" was released which is his best album ever. This album is another one of the finer efforts of Wyatt. This needs several spins before you'll start to discover the unique charm of the tracks. At first they all sound alike but in fact there quite different. This is not an album for every day use but when you're longing to find some peace and you like some jazzy atmospheres in prog, try Shleep and soon you'll be out of this world.3,5 stars
PROG REVIEWER
COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam
It was one of those fortunate coincidences that my truck cassette player had quit working and I was forced to listen to radio. I was driving home from work and one of the few stations I could stand to listen to was a public radio one. I caught a National Public Radio piece on Robert Wyatt. I was somewhat familiar with his work with early Soft Machine. I had a few LP's and one CD, but was totally unaware of Robert's solo albums.
The biographical stuff was rather interesting, but it was the excerpts from Shleep that really blew me away. I ordered a copy first thing when I got home. This album stands out as one of the most impressive releases of 1997 I've heard, even though looking at my collection there's a lot of cool stuff that I didn't become aware of until several years later.
I was already familiar with three of the guest musicians: Philip Catherine, Brian Eno, and Phil Manzanera. Good friends to have, indeed.
The opening track Heaps of Sheep is rather humorous piece about trying to fall asleep and the sheep he's counting piling up. Eno contributes vocals and synthesizer.
Duchess is a song about his wife, sort of a rap or beat poetry style singing. Eno's here again on synth and Wyatt plays something he calls a Polish fiddle. There may actually be such a thing but I suspect he's taken a page from Eno/Fripp and naming the playing style of an instrument as a new instrument in and of itself.
Maryan is a really beautiful track about water. It's the one with Philip Catherine. Nice and peaceful though the lyrics: "Back through the wavering weeds And the turds In the way Riversmell On the route"
Was A Friend has Hugh Hopper with a co credit but not a musician's appearance, lyrics I'm guessing. A song about a dream about an old friend. Wyatt on all the instruments except for a vocal from his wife.
Free Will and Testament is rather touching. I'm going to take a chance here and quote the whole lyrics because I found them and still do find them very moving:
"Given free will but within certain limitations, I cannot will myself to limitless mutations, I cannot know what I would be if I were not me, I can only guess me.
So when I say that I know me, how can I know that? What kind of spider understands arachnophobia? I have my senses and my sense of having senses. Do I guide them? Or they me?
The weight of dust exceeds the weight of settled objects. What can it mean, such gravity without a centre? Is there freedom to un-be? Is there freedom from will-to-be?
Sheer momentum makes us act this way or that way. We just invent or just assume a motivation. I would disperse, be disconnected. Is this possible? What are soldiers without a foe?
Be in the air, but not be air, be in the no air. Be on the loose, neither compacted nor suspended. Neither born nor left to die.
Had I been free, I could have chosen not to be me. Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill. Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill. Let me off please, I am so tired. Let me off please, I am so very tired."
September the Ninth is a cool jazzy piece with Robert's wife apparently contributing the lyrics. About a woman taking flight..
Phil Manzanera joins in for Alien, more lyrics from his wife, quite surreal. About alienation and not space aliens. It has a djembe player on it, too.
Out of Season is a short New Orleans Jazzyish piece about a little bird. Lyrics by Alfie (Alfreda Benge) again.
A Sunday in Madrid has a rambling set of lyrics, just a lazy day on the weekend. Eno's back with synth and synth bass.
Blues in Bob Minor is a tribute piece, of sorts, to the music of Bob Dylan.
The album wraps up with The Point of No Return, a short somber ethereal instrumental. Well, it does have vocals as instruments but no lyrics.
PROG REVIEWER
Anyhow, we are talking about the much rarer opposite phenomenon today. I know that I should detest Robert Wyatt's Shleep, but something keeps bringing me back to it.
Now, why should I detest Shleep, I ask. Let's start with the vocals. Wyatt's vocals are odd to begin with, and he makes them odder still by simulating an unsure and confused voice in appropriate parts of the songs. Add to this some extremely faux naive lyrics and you have vocal performance where everything seems to run out of control in an amateurish way. We could call the vocals dreamy, but they are the opposite of the kind of dreamy that, say, Jon Anderson does in Prince Rupert's Lament. Everything here is plodding, uncertain, and barely on course. And yet it works, in a weird way.
Now the second thing about Shleep that I really should hate is all of the odd sounds in it. There is nearly always a basic background that sound fine (usually piano or guitar backed by percussion) but then there is usually a layer over it of sounds that appear to be odd and amateurish. Sometimes it will be the violin, sometimes the trumpet, sometimes some extra percussion, but it's nearly always present. The Duchess is probably the best example of this, as the odd sounds eventually end up taking over the song in the middle, and we have something like The Waiting Room off of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, although with the intention of being a song instead of an interlude. I should find this extremely annoying, but I don't. There's some kind of simple charm in following those odd, jazzy, eccentric riffs. And while they sound amateurish, they aren't (although Wyatt would be better served by letting somebody else play trumpet.)
Ok, I've mentioned all of the negative stuff, so let me try to explain what the charm of this album is, even though I barely comprehend it myself. All of the things that I mention add up to some extremely interesting but subtle musical plays against a soothing, repetitious, almost chant-like atmosphere. The album drones on and on, but there is always something interesting to pay attention to at any given time. This is an album that really rewards careful listening. If it is just playing in the background, people won't even begin to understand why I am saying that it is a good album. And it is a very good album.
I'm giving it three stars. It's a good album and definitely worth a spin, but it's not going to be a gem in your collection. Instead, it's going to be a guilty pleasure that you listen to more than you think you should.
PROG REVIEWER
"Heaps Of Sheeps" sounds so unlike Wyatt.This is an upbeat pop song really. It's pretty much impossible for me not to like it though. Eno sings on the chorus and provides the synth work. "The Duchess" is one of my all time favourite Wyatt tracks. The lyrics are hilarious ! I love the avant gard elements throughout as well. This has to be heard to be believed, Robert even plays the fiddle. Best song on the album. "Maryan" opens with gentle guitar and trumpet(Wyatt). Vocals and piano a minute in. Violin before 2 1/2 minutes,and after 5 minutes. Beautiful tune. "Was A Friend" was co-written by non other then Hugh Hopper. It opens with a sample of "The music of Robert Wyatt by an astute Austrian band" before almost spoken words come in with piano and drums.Trumpet after 1 1/2 minutes. More trumpet after 4 minutes as the song gets intense to the end. Great track.
"Free Will And Testament" is a very laid back, vocal dominated song. "September The Ninth" is jazzy with sax, trombone, piano and light drums. No vocals until after 4 minutes. "Alien" features mesmerizing vocals from Robert with lots of percussion and some guitar from Manzanera 2 1/2 minutes in. "Out Of Season" is led by trombone, trumpet and piano. Vocals a minute in. "A Sunday In Madrid" features vocals that are almost spoken with a good melody. I really like this one. "Blues In Bob Minor" is uptempo with fast paced vocals. Some good guitar too. Very catchy. "The Whole Point Of No Return" is very cool sounding with the trumpet melodies along with these deep vocal melodies from a 4 member choir.
Another winner from Wyatt. I haven't been disappointed with any of his recordings so far. He's a treasure.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
The "band" feel with lots of brass and the bit surprising addition of guitar mean that the melancholic atmosphere that was dominant on previous albums is a bit less melancholic in nature on "Shleep" (there�s even a touch of latin influences in the music at times, which is almost happy sounding). The material on the album are of a good quality but generally lacks the emotional depth of Robert Wyatt�s more introvert and melancholic albums. There are great tracks featured on the album though and a track like "September the Ninth" is proabably the best example of a highlight. Robert Wyatt�s distinct and fragile sounding vocal style is as unique as always and the great humour that all his albums feature in varied doses is more than present on "Shleep".
The sound producion and the musicianship are of high class. "Shleep" features a pleasant and organic sounding production and the music is delivered by skilled and passionate musicians. As mentioned above I don�t think "Shleep" is Robert Wyatt�s most deep album and neither his best, but it�s still a good quality and innovative progressive rock album (with a touch of jazz) that�s definity worth a listen. A 3.5 star (70%) is deserved.
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
The music featured on the album is just as ambitious as the lineup by shifting styles between experimental and more relaxed compositions but this time with the new sounds and styles that seem to breath new life to the artist's generally stripped down composition style. To me, it almost sounds just like a mix between the melancholic and personal performance on Rock Bottom but with a feel of a full band setting that was especially memorable on Ruth is Stranger Than Richard. Just add the fact that most of this material was written by Wyatt himself and we finally get the great follow-up album that I have been waiting for ever since his 1974 career highlight.
Even though the music shifts gear on many occasions throughout the album it all has been carefully arranged not to feel out of place with the rest of material, which was somewhat of a problem for me on Robert Wyatt's previous releases. Songs like upbeat Blues In Bob Minor, that I believe is a tribute to Bob Dylan, wouldn't really have worked in a stripped down arrangement on any of the other Wyatt albums but here the cloudy synthesizer sound completely removes this problem providing the composition with a smooth and quite original sound. The music on Shleep is arranged into gorgeous dreamlike soundscapes that are especially notable on tracks like Free Will And Testament.
This is a great return to form by the artist that most progressive rock fans have given up on since Rock Bottom. If you're one of these people than I strongly suggest giving Shleep a go since this is the best recording that Robert Wyatt have released since his heydays back in the '70s!
***** star songs: September The Ninth (6:42)
**** star songs: Heaps Of Sheeps (4:58) The Duchess (4:20) Maryan (6:13) Was A Friend (6:13) Free Will And Testament (4:14) Alien (6:49) Out Of Season (2:33) A Sunday In Madrid (4:43) Blues In Bob Minor (5:48) The Whole Point Of No Return (1:25)
PROG REVIEWER
Latest members reviews
Listening diary 22nd April, 2022: Robert Wyatt - Shleep (canterbury/art rock, 1997) A strange record from a strange man, but Wyatt has this odd ability to be totally compelling with his strangeness, even when writing about sleep. I hear a lot of Richard Dawson in this, and I have no doubts that ... (read more)
Report this review (#2739169) | Posted by Gallifrey | Sunday, April 24, 2022 | Review Permanlink
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