death becomes him

“Just pretend that I’m dead,” said Robert Wyatt, on stage at London’s Purcell Rooms last week. “That way you won’t miss the tours and the albums will come as a nice surprise.”
Wyatt had chosen to speak, rather than play, in support of his new album Comicopera, citing ill-health and “just being tired.” Instead he answered questions, firstly from hosts Sean O’Hagan of The Observer and eMusic writer and Plan B magazine editor Frances Morgan, and then from the audience. The most eager members of the audience, of course, just wanted to know when he’d be touring again.
Wyatt, despite his suggestion, was very much alive, answering questions on his music-making process and career, from his early days with Soft Machine, part of the 1960s/ 70s Canterbury scene with their particularly English contribution to psychedelia, to his latest album. He sat centre stage, looking like an earthy Father Christmas, peppering his answers with anecdotes (turning down a guitar lesson from Hendrix, Paul Weller’s views on the Bible’s Martha and Mary story, Brian Eno’s slightly bossy nature) and shots of nicely self-depreciating wit.
It’s strange to head out to listen to someone talk about a new album without having heard said new album, that horrible dancing about architecture quote pops up in the mind,* but, perhaps even more so than with live musical performances, everything depends on the talents of the performer. And Wyatt can talk. He’s warm, funny, clever without being obscurist; the kind of man you could listen to at length. And he’s certainly not dead.

* I used to live with an architect who claimed it was perfectly possible, and also enjoyable, to dance about architecture, but that’s another story.