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"I don't think beforehand, I think afterwards. I find that plans ahead, concepts, limit you," says Robert Wyatt. Which is a little strange, given that Comicopera, divided as it is into three acts, feels decidedly conceptual. It ranks, however, among his finest achievements - indeed, it embraces all of the key themes of his career, ranging in mood from the amiably whimsical to the plaintively despondent, from private joy to political rage.

He's surrounded by old friends here, which could be a recipe for self-indulgence but in this case lends a warmth, a communitarian feel to Act One in particular. Annie Whitehead, Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Paul Weller and Gilad Atzmon are among those assembled. On the Anja Garbarek "Stay Tuned" there's a candlelit, vigil-like feel, with all of the musicians breathing as one, pulling in the same direction, no one breaking away from the cuddle. "You, You, You", co-written by Wyatt's partner Alfreda Benge, is a touching paean to interdependence, a hark-back to 1974's Rock Bottom, with Wyatt contributing muted, amateur but eloquent phrases on a cornet.

Act Two sees a shift in mood. It's an altogether jollier affair, with tracks like "On The Town Chair" and their cheerful gait threatening to revert into "Soup Song" from Ruth is Stranger Than Richard. However, like the blazing summer of 1914, this is a misleading prelude, for next cornes "A Beautiful War", with Wyatt as narrator assuming the role of the bomber. Act Three sees Wyatt refuse to sing in the English language, as a protest against the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. (This, after all, is the man who once said that his political inclination was to be a traitor.) The likes of "Del Mondo" and "Hasta Siempre Commandante" are more unravelled in their arrangements, more new jazzy in feel, reminiscent of Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra in their internationalist tone. Orphy Robinson's vibraphone solo on "Pastafari" is one of the section's towering moments of terrible beauty, pluming above the fray.

A superb album, in which Wyatt gathers all of his strengths, with the personal and the political, the aesthetic and the ethical are brought together as only he can.

Comicopera is like meeting an old friend. Conversation begins immediately where it last left off. What's new? How you been? Has it really been that long? No, really? Shame about so and so. It's not that nothing has changed. Static friendships die. The capacity to accommodate difference and change that revitalises the friendship. There are new influences and new songs. There are life-changing events. New loves and old ones rekindled. Life happens somewhere between comedy and tragedy - Comicopera. Robert Wyatt, his partner Alfie Benge and their comrades understand this well. There's observational comedy in 'A Beautiful Peace' and 'A Beautiful War', romantic comedy in 'Just As You Are' and slapstick in Orphy Robinson's 'Pastafari'. We feel pity and loss for Hattie in 'A.W.O.L.', while Richard Dawkins pops up cartoon-like on 'Be Serious' There's solidarity with the oppressed in 'Haste Siempre Comandante' and in Robert's setting of Lorca's 'Cancion de Julieta' and righteous anger in 'Out Of The Blue'. We shared those thoughts and those emotions and then we danced together. Oh, how we danced to 'On The Town Square'. And then we laughed and laughed again, as if we were the very last ones to get the joke of 'Anachronist'.

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