THE END OF AN EAR

While I love Robert Wyatt's music, including some on this album, and I love jazz (including avant-garde free jazz), it doesn't always work. I admire the spirit of innovation and exploration, and the great thing about improvisation is that it could succeed or fail spectacularly. This album contains some great musical moments, but also a lot of moments that are difficult to get through. It is thus quite fragmented, so although I encourage readers to pick up RW's music, as an album I would not recommend they start with this one. It is really for fans. I give this 5.1 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 2 PA stars (I had been wavering up to 5.8, but gave this another listen).