We’re all in agreement, aren’t we? Robert Wyatt possesses one of the most affecting voices of the last 40 years? If you concur with this assessment – and Jebus alone knows why you wouldn’t – For The Ghosts Within will act like a foot spa upon your soul.
A collaborative project with violinist/composer Ros Stephen and saxophonist/composer Gilad Atzmon, the album sites Wyatt’s voice within the lush and nurturing environs of a string quartet, entwined with the misty tendrils of Atzmon’s alto sax and clarinet: a combination which, at times, is so overpoweringly heady that listeners are in actual danger of losing their balance and sprawling headlong into the tea service. Affectionate, reverential readings of 30s standards (Lush Life, In A Sentimental Mood) rub spats with delicate, ruminative original compositions (Lullaby For Irena, the title track) to properly devastating effect.
You’d best prepare yourself for a tear duct-draining double whammy at the album’s end, wherein Wyatt revisits his airborne, transcendent and rightly revered rendition of Chic’s At Last I Am Free, then follows this with a vaporous, unforced but unavoidably significant What A Wonderful World. The cumulative effect is like having your heart ripped cleanly in two by rival teams of tug-o-war cherubs.
