Cuckooland

CUCKOOLAND, Wyatt’s 2003 criticall-acclaimed album, is no less mischievous, witty, and poignant than his past releases. As has become his custom, Wyatt offers a set of 16 new songs seemingly composed for a wide array of musicians including Annie Whitehead, Eno, David Gilmour, Tomo Hayakawa, Karen Mantler, Phil Manzanera, Paul Weller and others he enlisted to record it. The songs on Cuckooland are, in many ways, the most accessible he's written since Nothing Can Stop Us; opener, the listener hears Wyatt in good humor with razor-sharp political sensibilities, and in fantastic musical form. These are tomes full of melodic and harmonic creativity, offered as deathly serious as words of elegance and grace, and become elegies sending the listener off with more to think about than a pop album would normally dictate. Most importantly, Wyatt has demonstrated once again, that it makes no difference what else is going on in the pop world, he still creates a fiercely independent and wide open notion of song and composition that is always abundantly "musical", entertaining, provocative, and completely, utterly engaging from top to bottom.