Possibly as beautiful and assuredly restrained as anything he has done, Cuckooland was at 75 minutes Wyatt's longest work to date. After Brian Eno expressed concern about its length, Wyatt placed a half-minute break in the middle so people could go and put the kettle on.
In amongst the light-as-a feather brushstrokes and Wyatt's own muted trumpet playing, is an ire and barely contained anger both at our inability to be humanitarian and the follies that get carried out in that word's name. Wyatt had done whatever is the polar opposite of mellowing.