MATCHING MOLE

Robert Wyatt is an enormously-talented musician/songwriter, and his post-SOFT MACHINE venture, Matching Mole, does not disappoint. If anything, it gives Wyatt freer reign to his bizarre and strangely comforting musical ideas, and the melancholy opener "O Caroline" starts things off nicely, with plenty of wonderfully atmospheric (and very English) Mellotron, an instrument which Wyatt deploys substantially throughout, in addition to his sterling percussive duties. The rest of the album is primarily instrumental, with a few jokey Wyatt voice effects, and there's some good rock amidst the more whimsical material. "Part Of The Dance" and "Dedicated To Hugh..." are standouts, and the closer, "Immediate Curtain", is a little masterpiece of Mellotron - both achingly sad and effortlessly dreamlike. The best MM album without a doubt, and a gem of early-70s progressive music from one of its quirkiest and most bizarrely original artists.