Soft Machine with Heavy Friends - BBC In Concert 1971

Recorded live at London's Paris Theatre on March 11, 1971, BBC in Concert 1971 captures Canterbury scene avant-garde jazz-rock icons Soft Machine augmented by prominent UK jazz guests, featuring a massive 30-minute improvisational medley and an introductory billing hosted by John Peel.

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Soft Machine - Bundles 1975

In the extensive discography of Soft Machine, albums from the band's mid-to late-'70s jazz-rock period are sometimes afforded the least respect. Fans all have their favorite LPs representing a particular "classic" lineup -- as well as opinions about other albums signifying that Soft Machine's best days were behind them. Some feel it was all over when Robert Wyatt left after Fourth (or stopped singing after Third), and it's probably even possible to find somebody somewhere who lost interest when Hugh Hopper replaced Kevin Ayers after Volume One. However, nearly everyone agrees that the band's heyday was over by the time the three late-period Soft Machine albums on Harvest were released. And yet, these albums have much to recommend them. The first, Bundles, had the feeling of a new beginning for Soft Machine, for reasons including the label switch from Columbia to Harvest and even the LP's name -- not merely a number like Six or Seven this time around. But the biggest change came from the addition of hotshot guitarist Allan Holdsworth to the lineup, the first time in the band's history that an electric guitarist would be given such a prominent soloing role. Like three other members of the Softs' Bundles incarnation -- reedman Karl Jenkins, drummer John Marshall, and bassist Roy Babbington -- Holdsworth had played in Nucleus along with trumpeter Ian Carr, and like those three Nucleus alumni, Bundles introduced him to his largest audience thus far. Holdsworth wasted no time in making an impression. Playing single-note runs on "Hazard Profile, Pt. 1" (based on Jenkins' Nucleus composition "Song for the Bearded Lady," first heard on We'll Talk About It Later) so insanely fast that even air guitarists might have trouble keeping up, Holdsworth seemed to be a viable Brit entry into the fusion guitarist sweepstakes dominated by the likes of John McLaughlin and Al di Meola. Holdsworth provided the band exactly the jolt it required; contrast Bundles with Seven, the comparatively lackluster final Columbia LP, which had the same lineup as Bundles minus the guitarist. Jenkins could be a rather mild and unassertive reed player, leaving it to the ever-reliable Mike Ratledge's keyboards to take up the slack. But by the time of Bundles, Ratledge himself was beginning to retreat; he had apparently decided to mothball his old fuzz organ, favoring full-chord fills when comping and analog synth for his solo on "Hazard Profile, Pt. 5." Given Ratledge's diminishing role, the decision to add Holdsworth to the band came none too soon. Aside from the guitarist, Soft Machine's most incendiary player on Bundles turned out to be drummer Marshall, powerful on the straightaway and atmospheric while taking center stage on "Four Gongs Two Drums." As for the material itself, principal composer Jenkins -- who had been gradually taking over the conceptual reins since his first appearance on Six -- had the ability to write sleek and streamlined jazz-rock that still managed to recall the band's past, particularly in his penchant for odd rhythmic permutations ("Bundles") and ethereal, minimalist-influenced keyboard ostinatos ("The Floating World") that harked back to Ratledge's tape experimentation on Third. Bundles might not have been classic Soft Machine in most people's books, but the band's new guitarist, new label, and new outlook seemed to signal a fresh start. As it turned out, Holdsworth would leave before Soft Machine's next LP. And, more significantly for any band claiming the Soft Machine name, so would Ratledge, the group's sole remaining original member. And yet the band's story was not over, and there was still some good music to follow. [Several of the strongest tracks from Bundles can also be heard on Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975-1981, which also includes selections from Softs, Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris, and Land of Cockayne.]

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Soft Machine - Fifth 1972

As the Soft Machine moved further away from rock on Third and Fourth, drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt's dissatisfaction with the band's direction grew and, by the time sessions started for Fifth in late 1971, he had left permanently to form Matching Mole. While the instrumental Fourth had forayed deep into jazz-rock territory, Fifth found the Soft Machine working almost completely in the jazz idiom. At the time of Wyatt's departure, keyboardist Mike Ratledge commented that the band's co-founder had "never enjoyed or accepted working in complex time signatures." However, Wyatt's replacement -- Phil Howard -- didn't prove to be the kind of timekeeper Ratledge and bassist Hugh Hopper had in mind and his free jazz orientation led to his dismissal during the recording of the album. Howard's propulsive rhythms nevertheless make a vital contribution to memorable Ratledge compositions like "All White" and "Drop" as they gather momentum and coalesce into driving grooves. "All White" is focused largely on Elton Dean's sax performance while "Drop" ultimately showcases the intense busy fuzz of Ratledge's organ. In places on Fifth, there does seem to be an element of tension between the more structured approach of Ratledge and Hopper and the free-form inclinations of Dean. The looser style of Dean's squalling sax playing is foregrounded particularly on "As If" -- another Ratledge piece. A certain constituency among Soft Machine fans tends to concentrate on the band's earlier releases and to consider everything from Fourth onward less compelling. That attitude has something to do with not being especially interested in jazz, so it's not entirely fair to dismiss this album without qualifying such a judgment. Anyone expecting to hear a rock album or a jazz-rock album will probably be disappointed with Fifth. This is essentially a jazz record, more concerned with texture and interplay than with song-based structures. AMG.

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Soft Machine - Softs 1976

At this point in the band's history, Soft Machine's lineup might raise the question of Theseus' paradox: if all the pieces of something are replaced, bit by bit over time, does the identity of the original something still remain? On Softs, Mike Ratledge, the only original bandmember present on Bundles, the group's preceding Harvest LP, was relegated to guest status, contributing synthesizer to only two tracks, "Song of Aeolus" and "Ban-Ban Caliban." Otherwise, keyboard duties fell completely to Karl Jenkins, who joined the group prior to the recording of Six and had gradually taken over the conceptual reins as the Softs finished their tenure with Columbia and moved over to Harvest. On Softs more than ever before, Soft Machine was Jenkins' band; he composed fully seven of the LP's 11 tracks, making the album a vehicle for his own artistic conception. And yet, as Soft Machine albums go, this one is just fine, thank you. Jenkins had always put his own personal stamp on the material he wrote for the band, but he also retained elements of a Soft Machine style that emerged around the time Ratledge began penning LP side-long opuses on Third: a marriage of modalism and minimalism with memorable themes in layered counterpoint and an occasional backdrop of rippling, echoey overdubbed electric keyboards, giving the music a trippy, trance-inducing quality. Nimble keyboard and reed solos were also an important element of the Soft Machine sound, although, as the group entered its Harvest fusion period, they tended to take a back seat to the work of fleet-fingered electric guitarists, first Allan Holdsworth on Bundles and then John Etheridge here. With Etheridge proving that Holdsworth wasn't England's only blindingly fast fusion guitar riff-meister, and with new saxophonist Alan Wakeman being a somewhat heftier reedman than Jenkins, the Softs lineup was plenty strong enough in the soloing department, so Jenkins could concentrate on overdubbing an arsenal of keyboards to give the music its overall structure and mood. Meanwhile, the Roy Babbington (bass) and John Marshall (drums) rhythm-section team, intact since Seven, was as fine as ever, kicking the band into overdrive at the drop of a hi-hat. While Softs has plenty to satisfy the Canterbury and jazz-rock fusion fan, another stylistic element -- new age -- can be heard blowing in with the synthesized wind and strings of the slow and lovely "Song of Aeolus." A precarious balance is usually maintained and the music keeps its footing in jazz-rock, although Softs certainly has more polish than grit. Moments of subtlety and understatement, like the pastoral soprano saxophone and acoustic guitar duet of the opening "Aubade" and Etheridge's folk-jazz duet with himself on the album-closing "Etka," are balanced by passages of high drama: the multitudinous layers of guitars and keyboards piled onto the closing of "The Tale of Taliesin" might suggest the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" coda through a widescreen '70s fusion lense. Elsewhere, the careful buildup and breakdown of lovely themes on "Out of Season" and the insistent groove of "Ban-Ban Caliban" are notable highlights. Softs is adventurous listening, yet accessible and engaging enough to have broad appeal, and its stylistic links to the past maintain Soft Machine's distinctive identity -- even if this particular machine is constructed of replacement parts. [Some good selections from Softs can also be heard on Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975-1981,  AMG

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Soft Machine - Fourth 1971

musical study. Fourth is the band's free purging of all of that knowledge, woven into noisy, smoky structures of sound. Their arcane rhythms have a stop-and-go mentality of their own that sounds incredibly fresh even though it is sonically steeped in soft and warm tones. Obviously, there is a lot of skillful playing going on, as the mix of free jazz, straight-ahead jazz, and Gong-like psychedelia coalesces into a skronky plateau. Robert Wyatt's drumming is impeccable -- so perfect that it at times becomes an unnoticeable map upon which the bandmembers take their instinctive direction. Mike Ratledge's keys are warm throughout, maintaining an earthy quality that keeps its eye on the space between the ground and the heavens that Soft Machine attempts to inhabit. Elton Dean's saxophone work screams out the most inventive cadence, and since it's hardly rhythmic, it takes front and center, spitting out a crazy language. Certainly, the band is the preface to a good portion of Chicago's post-rock output, as the Softs undoubtedly give a nod to Miles Davis' Bitches Brew experiments, which were going on in the U.S. at the same time. AMG.

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Soft Machine - Fourth 1971

Soft Machine's collective skill is hyper-complex and refined, as they are extremely literate in all fields of musical study. Fourth is the band's free purging of all of that knowledge, woven into noisy, smoky structures of sound. Their arcane rhythms have a stop-and-go mentality of their own that sounds incredibly fresh even though it is sonically steeped in soft and warm tones. Obviously there is a lot of skillful playing going on, as the mix of free jazz, straight-ahead jazz, and Gong-like psychedelia coalesces into a skronky plateau. Robert Wyatt's drumming is impeccable -- so perfect that it at times becomes an unnoticeable map upon which the bandmembers take their instinctive direction. Mike Ratledge's keys are warm throughout, maintaining an earthy quality that keeps its eye on the space between the ground and the heavens that Soft Machine attempt to inhabit. Elton Dean's saxophone work screams out the most inventive cadence, and since it's hardly rhythmic, it takes front and center, spitting out a crazy language. Certainly the band is the preface to a good portion of Chicago's post-rock output, as the Softs undoubtedly give a nod to Miles Davis' Bitches Brew experiments, which were going on in the U.S. at the same time. AMG.

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Soft Machine - Third 1970

The Soft Machine plunged deeper into jazz and contemporary electronic music on this pivotal release, which incited the Village Voice to call it a milestone achievement when it was released. It's a double album of stunning music, with each side devoted to one composition -- two by Mike Ratledge, and one each by Hopper and Wyatt, with substantial help from a number of backup musicians, including Canterbury mainstays Elton Dean and Jimmy Hastings. The Ratledge songs come closest to fusion jazz, although this is fusion laced with tape loop effects and hypnotic, repetitive keyboard patterns.Hugh Hopper's "Facelift" recalls "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson, although it's more complex, with several quite dissimilar sections. The pulsing rhythms, chaotic horn and keyboard sounds, and dark drones on "Facelift" predate some of what Hopper did as a solo artist later (this song was actually culled from two live performances in 1970). Robert Wyatt draws on musical ideas from early 1967 demos done with producer Giorgio Gomelsky, on his capricious composition "Moon in June." Lyrically, it's a satirical alternative to the pretension displayed by a lot of rock writing of the era, and combined with the Softs' exotic instrumentation, it makes for quite a listen (the collection Triple Echo includes a BBC broadcast recording of this song, with different albeit equally fanciful lyrics). Not exactly rock, Third nonetheless pushed the boundaries of rock into areas previously unexplored, and it managed to do so without sounding self-indulgent. A better introduction to the group is either of the first two records, but once introduced, this is the place to go. AMG.

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Soft Machine - BBC Radio 1967-1971

There is no shortage of collections of archive material by the Soft Machine and some of them are pretty good (especially the ones released on Cuneiform). But this Hux double-CD compilation is the mother lode. You just can't beat BBC recordings for good sound quality and meaningful "alternate versions." This first volume covers the group's early years up to the departure of drummer Robert Wyatt, starting with a session from December 1967, when the Softs consisted of Kevin Ayers, Mike Ratledge, and Wyatt. Early demo and live versions of dubious quality of "Clarence in Wonderland," "Certain Kind," or "Hope for Happiness" are in circulation (see Turns On, Vol. 1, for instance), but these recordings are far more superior. A session from 1969 features Wyatt, Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, and Brian Hopper in a torrid medley of "Facelift" and the "Mousetrap" suite, but the jewel of the first disc is indisputably a full-band rendition (Ratledge, Wyatt, and Hugh Hopper) of "Moon in June," one of very few times it was performed as such (the studio version was mostly put together by Wyatt overdubbing all parts). Disc two presents sessions from 1971 with Elton Dean added to the regular lineup. The last track is another "Mousetrap" sequence seguing into "Esther's Nose Job," performed by the short-lived septet lineup (with a brass section formed by Dean, Lyn Dobson, Marc Charig, and Nick Evans). This is the closest thing to a studio recording existing by this particular group and it is well-worth the price of admission. If you are a relative newcomer to the music of Soft Machine and are looking to expand beyond their studio releases, start here before moving on to more obscure live sets. AMG. listen here

Soft Machine - Third 1970

The Soft Machine plunged deeper into jazz and contemporary electronic music on this pivotal release, which incited the Village Voice to call it a milestone achievement when it was released. It's a double album of stunning music, with each side devoted to one composition -- two by Mike Ratledge, and one each by Hopper and Wyatt, with substantial help from a number of backup musicians, including Canterbury mainstays Elton Dean and Jimmy Hastings. The Ratledge songs come closest to fusion jazz, although this is fusion laced with tape loop effects and hypnotic, repetitive keyboard patterns. Hugh Hopper's "Facelift" recalls "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson, although it's more complex, with several quite dissimilar sections. The pulsing rhythms, chaotic horn and keyboard sounds, and dark drones on "Facelift" predate some of what Hopper did as a solo artist later (this song was actually culled from two live performances in 1970). Robert Wyatt draws on musical ideas from early 1967 demos done with producer Giorgio Gomelsky, on his capricious composition "Moon in June." Lyrically, it's a satirical alternative to the pretension displayed by a lot of rock writing of the era, and combined with the Softs' exotic instrumentation, it makes for quite a listen (the collection Triple Echo includes a BBC broadcast recording of this song, with different albeit equally fanciful lyrics). Not exactly rock, Third nonetheless pushed the boundaries of rock into areas previously unexplored, and it managed to do so without sounding self-indulgent. A better introduction to the group is either of the first two records, but once introduced, this is the place to go. AMG.

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