Robyn Hitchcock On World Cafe

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Robyn Hitchcock Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Courtesy of the artist

Robyn Hitchcock

Courtesy of the artist

Robyn Hitchcock's latest, self-titled album is slick, surrealist, psychedelic and oh-so-smart. Over the past 40 years, Hitchcock has released more than 20 records between his solo material and his work with The Soft Boys, the psychedelic art-rock band he founded in 1976. Both R.E.M. and The Replacements have cited The Soft Boys' 1980 album Underwater Moonlight as a major influence, and producer Brendan Benson (of rock band The Raconteurs) wanted Hitchcock to harken back to the sound of that album when making his latest solo record.

You can imagine that an artist like Hitchcock, who has been creating for more than four decades, has gone through a few different phases. In our chat, Robyn calls those amputations: where you cut a part of an old life off and start anew. His latest amputation involved leaving his home in the U.K. and relocating to Nashville. We'll talk about moving on, from places and from people.

But we start with Hitchcock's live performance of the opening song on his latest album. It's a tune called "I Want To Tell You About What I Want." Hear it all in the player above.