Different Every Time: The Robert Wyatt Biography

It is now over thirty-five years since Robert Wyatt – then best-known for his membership of The Wilde Flowers, Matching Mole and, in particular, Soft Machine – saw his drumming career brought to an abrupt halt, when an infamous fall from a window left him paraplegic. As a singer, however, he went on to create such solo masterpieces as Rock Bottom and, during the intensely politicized early 1980s, the definitive version of Elvis Costello’s Shipbuilding. And whereas many of his contemporaries have made the odd ill-advised foray into drum’n’bass or Christian rock, Wyatt has maintained a discography of rare quality and consistency: within the last decade he has been nominated for the Mercury prize and asked to curate London’s Meltdown festival, an honour shared by David Bowie, Morrisey and Patti Smith. This will be his first English language biography, and it has Robert’s full support.