Spectres at the feast in this year’s list of albums of the year and the poetic heart of the list for sure, Robert Wyatt produced one of the biggest surprises of the year in this joint collaboration with Gilad Atzmon and violinist/arranger Ros Stephen plus the Sigamos String Quartet in tow.

Less political in tone than its predecessor Comicopera from 2007 but nonetheless imbued with a poetic sensibility that illuminates the album throughout, in a way the “ghosts” on the title track which Wyatt wrote with his partner Alfie Benge could hark back to the ghastly visions that Wyatt was so haunted by in his opposition to the war in Iraq on Comicopera. Yet the ambiguity of reference on this album increases the power of the metaphorical conceit.

The album is also significant in that it provides even more illumination if any more were needed of the sheer musicality of Atzmon’s approach both as a saxophonist and as a producer; and For The Ghosts Within is in many ways a natural and even more layered and sophisticated successor to his Bird With Strings-influenced album In Loving Memory Of America from last year.

Wyatt also brings his unbearably poignant and affecting voice to wonderful effect at certain key points such as on ‘Lush Life’, just one indication of his skill and knowledge in dealing with jazz standards even when he does not really think in terms of “doing a standard”. What brought Wyatt to much of the material, Andy Robson discovered on interviewing him for the November issue, wasn’t necessarily the lyrics. “Take ‘’Round Midnight’," Wyatt told him, "it was like, do we really want another record with ‘’Round Midnight’ on it? But I thought, well fuck that, it has that chord sequence which is as amazing as anything in jazz.’ But then I didn’t want to sing the words because they were some sentimental stuff. But the tune, that sequence of chords and changes, I just love them. So I had to whistle it.” The Jazzwise scribes who voted the album so high in the list could very well still be whistling along such was the impact this fine album has had. What a wonderful world, indeed.

– Stephen Graham