THE BEST OF SOFT MACHINE...THE HARVEST YEARS

Compliation from the latter end of Soft Machines Career. Great tracks from the Bundles album with Alan Holdsworth on guitar. The other tracks are from The Softs album and (I think) Live in Paris. You can tell from those that Soft Machines ideas were running out, Ratledge was gone, Jenkins had finally taken over. Better to buy Bundles and forget this.

Compilation of Soft Machine during the Karl Jenkins era, 1975-1978. This disc cannot include material from 1981's "Land Of Cockayne" (the final Softs album) or "Rubber Riff" (apocryphal library music recorded in '76 but unissed until '94) as those were on different labels. So, while perhaps not definitive, this disc is a magnificent look at the Jenkins era Soft Machine nonetheless. Their three Harvest albums ("Bundles", "Softs" and "Alive And Well") are absolute masterpieces of the fusion genre and go well beyond; 'Soft Space', for instance, is an extremely early techno exercise that still remains as fresh today as it was in 1978. And the rest-- what can be said? Soft Machine never disappointed. Even the more 'ordinary' cuts on here cannot be declaimed. The Softs took the seed of what Miles was doing on "Bitches Brew" and planted it on "Third"; by "Six" the plant was growing and by the time of "Bundles" the flower was in bloom, and it never wilted. This is a flawless compilation, it couldn't be anything else. A great place to start with the band buit certainly not the place to end; each one of Soft Machine's albums, especially beginning with "Third" are essential.