2 x LP on heavyweight vinyl with download.

The history of Robert Wyatt’s music gained a new and wonderful chapter in 1997 with the release of ‘Shleep’, his first album since 1991. With contributions from guest musicians Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Phil Manzanera, Evan Parker, Annie Whitehead and others, Robert has created another classic album : inimitably Wyatt, but adding new colours and textures. A truly memorable work.

“It is particularly notable for how well it is played and recorded. To someone who spends most of their time listening to production line lo-fi alternative rock it is a revelation to hear something as intricate and delicate as this. Wyatt’s percussion and bass playing is stunning and the vocal tracks are so intense and unpredicatable that it takes half a dozen listens before you can even get a handle on what is going on. There is some brilliant footage in the film ‘Little Red Riding Hood hit the road’ where you can see them in the studio recording the album – Eno, Manzanera and Wyatt totally on-fire picking out melodies like wizards in a recording studio.” – Head Heritage

“Nearly every song on Shleep shines in one way or another: It features a couple of his most elegant melodies in “Was a Friend” (co-written by his old Soft Machine bandmate Hugh Hopper) and “Free Will and Testament”, as well as an extended paraphrase of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (“Blues in Bob Minor”) and a little instrumental written by Paul Weller. Its centerpiece is a three-song suite whose lyrics (by Benge) are ostensibly about birds and metaphorically about aliens and refugees: their leftist politics were more effective for being integrated into their art rather than plunked onto it, as they’d been in the Dondestan” – Pitchfork