Robert Wyatt is your favorite uncle, prickly and eccentric and infinitely lovable in that daffy English sort of way. He is also the art rock icon who co-founded Soft Machine in the '60s. In 1973 he fell from a fourth story window and was paralyzed from the waist down. Since then he has released several astounding solo albums that have all been recently re-issued. Shleep, his latest effort, is odd and fanciful, intensely intimate like the rest of his work, and forthrightly political. It is a warm if itchy sweater of song. (CF)

Caterina Fake