Robert Wyatt

Fearing that the idea of progressive rock was becoming too muddied and cluttered, Robert Wyatt created this low-key masterpiece in 1974. His fluttering vocals detail everything from rediscovery to redemption, while the sparse instrumentation (guided by piano) takes you through his incredibly understated arrangements.

I'm at a loss to describe this album of "drones and songs" conceived and recorded after Wyatt's crippling accident except to say that the keyboards that dominate instrumentally are of a piece with his lovely tortured-to-vulnerable quaver and that the mood is that of a paraplegic with the spirit to conceive and record an album of drones and songs. (Grade - B+)