Robert Wyatt
“For my prog hero, I thought I’d go for someone from my neck of the woods in Canterbury. I considered Kevin Ayes, but I chose Robert Wyatt, not only because of Soft Machine, but because of his subsequent career beyond that. He’s just such an important figure and is widely recognised beyond his music, and he’s a brilliant character.
“It’s funny because me and the rest of Syd Arthur and our wider group of friends were really into music, but it took us a while to find the Canterbury Sound. It wasn’t in the air and you didn’t hear it as you walked around. It subsequently got referred to as the
Canterbury Sound, but I think initially it was just this amazing, trailblazing, influential, highly original music. There’s even a Banksy-style stencil of Robert Wyatt spray-painted onto the building where the Beehive Club used to be, which everyone used to play: The Wilde Flowers, Caravan, Soft Machine in the very early days. The Canterbury scene is a bit more present nowadays and the appreciation has grown.
“I first got into his music through Soft Machine. I’m sure we would have found them eventually, but if it wasn’t for a friend’s dad’s amazing record collection it might’ve taken longer. We pulled out all these great records and just had our minds blown really by the Canterbury bands, and also the freewheeling psych of the Grateful Dead. With Soft Machine I felt a strong connection to the music and what they were exploring sonically. I guess at the time we were totally primed for discovery ourselves, and we were getting more into progressive rock.
“I just love those first three Soft Machine records. Volume Two is absolutely one of my all-time favourite albums, and Robert Wyatt is such a massive part of that record and that sound. It’s one of the shining lights of the early progressive music scene. It has everything: there are instrumental passages of raw power; cool, interesting time signatures; the interplay between the band is amazing; it’s got little ditties where Robert Wyatt sings the alphabet, and then it segues into another song and returns at the end where he sings the alphabet backwards; and yeah, his whimsical lyrics and his voice are a major factor. And then of course there’s his drumming! He’s still a drummer at this point, and he’s bringing that jazz influence to a rock/pop discipline.
“I liked his other band, Matching Mole, but it’s when he starts his solo stuff that I become very interested again. To be such an amazing drummer and be able to express yourself in that way, and then have this unfortunate accident where some of that is taken away from you [he lost the use of the bottom half of his body after he fell out of a window in 1973]. So he stops being a drummer
“There’s even a Banksystyle stencil of Robert Wyatt spray-painted onto the building where the Beehive Club used to be, which everyone played.”
in the same way and he’s forced to explore new avenues. He can’t rely on what he used to do in the band scenario and so his solo work becomes more childlike and innocent, but also poetic and exploratory. There are more songs that we’d call structured, and such interesting writing.
“One of the first records he makes, Rock Bottom, is just a stunning album. It’s up there again as one of my favourites. Sea Song, the opener, is one of those magic songs for me. We’ve been playing with this jazz band in Canterbury – it’s billed as Jack Hues & The Quartet ft. Syd Arthur – and we’re actually playing a version of Sea Song at the moment. It’s so much fun to play; I don’t know what it is about it but it’s mesmerising. Jack Hues has come up with this really cool arrangement and whenever people hear it it has a profound effect on them.
“I’m into all of his stuff really, which goes to show the breadth of him as an artist. We’ve done some work with Paul Weller in the past and he’s done a few tracks with him (The Whole Point of No Return, She Moves With The Fayre), and it was great to chat to him about their collaborative experience. He has the utmost respect for him. And the fact that all these artists like Björk want to work with him is very cool.
“Soft Machine must have had an influence on Syd Arthur. I really love Hugh Hopper’s bass playing and I’m massively into fuzz bass. But I think it was more just all of those bands really, the melting pot of the Canterbury scene: Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield And the North, they were all big influences on us.”