The idea of Robert Wyatt as a “singles artist” is bizarrely perverse. After all, the man came to fame as a member of the iconoclastic Soft Machine, a unit that found odd pockets in art-rock to exploit for fun and perversity. These tracks from the early ‘80s suggest much from Wyatt’s left-wing politics and his even more far-out ways with hooks. “Born Again Cretin” is a nattering piece of three-minute pop. Chic’s “At Last I Am Free” plays like a smooth, solid ballad where Wyatt takes his haunting voice into the world of R &B, with the same unyielding sound fields that made his name back in 1974 with Rock Bottom. Ivor Cutler’s “Grass” flirts with World Music. “Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’” is an a cappella gospel number that’s not religious but political. Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” is done straight, sparse and convincingly. “Caimanera” is a Cuban folk song. “Trade Union” enters the fields of Spanish workers. “Stalingrad” is a spoken word piece that ends this unusual collection.