ROBERT WYATT : Different Every Time

This week a long overdue authorised biography of one of music's most revered musicians is published by Serpents Tail. Different Every Time tells the story of Robert Wyatt, from his liberatingly bohemian childhood and youth through his groups - the Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Matching Mole, to his unique and substantial body of solo work and the many fruitful associations that pepper his career. There is of course tragedy and drama along the way with enough high and low points to ensure that Robert's story reads every bit as enthrallingly as that of the most feted rock star, but in essence it's a sympathetically-told tale of a very gifted man, his special music, his political beliefs and his relationship with his wife Alfie, herself a distinguished artist of some reknown.

It has been my privilege to have known and worked with both Robert and Alfie over the years, first at Rough Trade and then again a few years later when I signed Robert to Rykodisc where, dare I say it, we helped rejuvenate his career by releasing Shleep, Cuckooland and re-releasing most of his back catalogue. I can vividly remember the excitement in the office as I played the initial tracks from Shleep that Alfie brought in one day. Our press officer, Pat Naylor, who did such a marvellous job promoting the albums, and my co-conspirator Alison Wilshaw were particularly enthralled and after we'd managed to persuade our U.S. parent company (who were really only interested in an artist if their past sales figures looked good) that we just HAD to sign Robert (thanks to Joe Boyd who insisted that Robert's records be released on his Hannibal imprint) we embarked on an extended relationship that I still regard as the most satisfying and enjoyable that I had in my long music biz career. Our beloved Rykodisc eventually fell into the hands of a hedge-fund shark who made a lot of money on it when he sold it to the hapless Warner Music who, despite promises to the contrary, decimated it. I could go on. But I won't. Happily, when the axe fell I was able to ensure that Robert and his music found a good home at Domino Records where Laurence Bell and Jonny Bradshaw in particular have continued to give Robert and Alfie the support and freedom to continue making music on their own terms.

Musician (one half of Grasscut) and writer Marcus Odair has performed an exemplary job in writing this book so sensitively and passionately. His research was obviously diligent and far-reaching and his assessment and knowledge of Robert's music have given the book a dimension that so many lesser music biographies lack. I can't recommend it highly enough. Also, around the same time, Domino are releasing a double CD compilation with the same title which I helped compile. One disc will feature a selection of tracks covering Robert's early years and solo work and the other disc contains a diverse and revealing set of collaborations between Robert and artists ranging from John Cage to Bjork. It's the perfect accompaniment to this very fine book.

An Evening With Michel Faber

 Tuesday Oct 21 2014

To Bath to hear Michel Faber talk about his new, and supposedly last, novel The Book Of Strange New Things. Bath is blessed with two superb independent bookstores – Topping & Co., who also host the Bath Autumn Book Festival, and the splendidly named Mr.B's Emporium Of Reading Delights who staged this event (check out their excellent web-site) that was held at the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institute. In the wake of the recent film adaptation of Under The Skin (a film I'm afraid I found impenetrable) and two radio adaptations ahead of publication date, Faber's book has been hotly anticipated and very well promoted (at least via Twitter anyway) by Canongate. Having managed to miss out somehow on The Crimson Petal And The White and his earlier work, my initial introduction to Faber's writing was with the wonderful short story collection The Fahrenheit Twins. The title story was made available as a magazine give-away CD which had Faber reading it over a suitably icy ambient soundtrack written and performed by Brian Eno, and as I had managed to persuade Eno to release his then current album Another Day On Earth on the record label I ran at the time I was keen to make this unique collaboration commercially available as well. Lunch with Canongate boss Jamie Byng and Eno's manager Jane Geerts generated much enthusiasm but alas, for reasons I can't fully remember but probably have more to do with my failure to convince my sceptical bosses of its commercial value than anything else, the idea never materialised and the CD remains, I suspect, something of a collectors item.

However my interest in Faber and his work was kindled and although it's been a long time since then, the arrival of a new book is genuinely exciting. The circumstances under which The Book Of Strange New Things was written has already been quite well documented. Tragically, Faber's second wife Eva, who worked closely with him on his writing and seems to have been an invaluable source of inspiration, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died last July after the book was completed. In this, one of several select appearances he's making to promote the book, Faber, a man known to be private and almost reclusive, talked openly about his wife's illness, the effect it had on the way the book was written (at her insistence he wrote six lines a day while he was caring for her) and indeed the content of the book. Unlike The Crimson Petal, which he said was meticulously planned from beginning to end before he even started writing it, Strange New Things was an adventure for him in that he had no clear idea of where and how it would end when he started out. Clearly I haven't read it yet (my signed first edition rests invitingly on my desk as I write this) but, like all of Faber's books it apparently avoids any attempt to be labelled genre fiction. From what I can gather it's essentially about faith and relationships but, like Under The Skin, it has a science fiction element (there are aliens) that hopefully won't deter people who are averse to that possibly intimidating genre. Like all of Faber's books that I have so far read it promises to deliver, amidst a fantastical and other-worldly setting, more perceptive wisdom on the human condition. Prompted by a chap from Mr.B's who looked disarmingly like the actor Hugh Laurie and was a really excellent interviewer, Faber's confident and well-measured conversation ranged beyond the subject of the new book and at one point he declared, surprisingly, that he hardly reads at all these days. His life, it seems, is consumed by music. He spends a lot of time with his record collection and plays music all the time. “There is no way I'm going to read the Booker Proze shortlist for instance. Why would I read when I could be listening to Hungarian prog-rock?” This is obviously not a new obsession either as he said that when he was a struggling novice writer in Australia, before the days of computers and without a typewriter, he rejected the idea of hiring a typist at $1.50 a page because he could buy a second-hand LP for that! In the audience Q&A that followed I asked him if music inspired him in his writing and whether he listened to music when he wrote. He said that music didn't inspire his work and that he listened to (non-vocal) music all the time when he worked but music that definitely did not complement the mood or setting of what he was writing. Miles Davis and Krautrock seemed to be current favourites. He also said that even though his fiction-writing days were over (“I've written all I have to say; I don't want to repeat myself”) he was contemplating a book on music (“which only 180 people will probably want to read”). But underlying everything he talked about was the sense of loss that he obviously feels so acutely with the death of his wife, and it was to this theme that he turned again to complete the evening when he read five or six startling poems (which may or may not be published eventually) – some angy, some almost unbearably poignant, all of them raw and scalpel sharp. It was an extraordinary performance from such a reticent character. We were witnessing a sort of catharsis that was both unnerving and profoundly moving. If The Book Of Strange New Things carries anywhere near such an emotional punch then it will be a truly memorable read.