ALIVE & WELL - RECORDED IN PARIS

Soft Machine was at the time of the recording of this album bankrupt after several failed tours in Italy where they did not get paid and had to crawl back to UK again on empty petrol tanks. The band was in disarray and the recording of the new material, the Alive & Well album, was done with a live audience over several nights just to save studio costs. This plan backfired though because the recording turned into a farce and the band had to bite the bullet and do substantial work on this album in the studio. This is what I remember from reading the excellent Soft Machine biography by Graham Bennett. All errors is due to my faltering memories.

This is in fact a recording of new material and a proper new studio release from Soft Machine. They have got a lot of new members on this album too. Soft Machine ran through an impressive amount of members through their elleven studio albums, remember. This time, they even added a violinist. Alive & Well follows the Bundles and Soft tradition, bypassing the horrible Rubber Riff album. If you like Bundles and Soft (and the associated live albums), you will also like most of Alive & Well.

The music here is fusion based on the good guitar work by John Etheridge. The music has the magic Soft Machine identity I cannot put my finger on. The songs are not that good though. They are far better than Rubber Riff, but nowhere as good at Bundles and Softs. Only Huffin and The Nodder does have the normal Soft Machine quality. The Nodder is a throwback to the good old Soft Machine from previous years. The rest of this album is not too bad though. The Rubber Riff like stuff on Soft space is pretty bad and more suitable for a bad BBC soap opera. I am in no doubt it was intended for just that, too.

This album was created through chaos and the end result is not too bad. But it shows a band in decline and the end was near. Alive & Well is not an essential Soft Machine album by any means. But I still like it........ in small dosages.

3 stars (barely)

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