THE SOFT MACHINE

This is one of my all-time top five albums and certainly my favourite "Prog" item. It consists of four side-long pieces (on the original vinyl) which are each in a distinctive style but share the basic structural approach of having striking melodic themes linked by passages of improvisation. "Facelift" is brash and powerful, driven along by Hopper's springy bass lines and Wyatt's chopping drums. Mike Ratledge's first solo is his most exciting on the album. "Slightly All The Time" is more contemplative and features Elton Dean at his most lyrical. "Moon In June" is a Wyatt masterpiece which many feel is worth the price of the album on its own. "Out Bloody Rageous" is the most overtly jazz-oriented piece and also (in shortened form) served as my introduction to the Soft Machine when included on a 1970 CBS sampler.

This is an album that simply could not have been made now. It comes from a time when groups were allowed to record adventurous music. I am grateful to have been around to pick up on it. There's not a weak passage on the album - 5 stars for sure.

Although they had only formed a mere five years prior from the ashes of the Wilde Flowers, THE SOFT MACHINE had transmogrified from a beat inspired 60s psychedelic pop and proto-prog entity into a fully fledged jazz-fusion behemoth after adding Elton Dean to the roster for their epic 1970 double length album "Third" which found the trio turned quartet not only dropping the definite article "THE" from their moniker but also found the role of founding member Robert Wyatt's input quickly diminishing from the overall scenario. On the first two SOFT MACHINE albums, Wyatt's role was the main feature with his unmistakably unique vocals showcasing the music but with the addition of Dean along with an additional cast of guest musicians mostly out of the jazz circuits, Wyatt found himself ever more estranged from the creative direction that his fellow band mates were conjuring up around him and by the time "Third" came out he had to fight tooth and nail just to get the one vocal song to be sandwiched into the jazzy skronk wonderland of all things free form jazz surging with psychedelic overtones.

On the logically yet uncreatively titled 4 (pronounced FOURTH), the SOFTS had all but jettisoned their Canterbury influences and psychedelic vocal whimsy in favor of an all out instrumental jazz-fusion attack set on sizzling with Elton Dean casting his weight based off his recent solo album "Just Us" of the same year. The result is the beginning of the classic jazz-fusion era of SOFT MACHINE and on FOURTH they followed Dean's lead who developed his fierce alto sax and saxello playing skills in his days with Keith Tippett. While the avant-garde Ornette Coleman styled free-for-all sax solos whizzing around at light speed play a central part of the overall sound of FOURTH, the psychedelic 60s hadn't been totally erased from memory as Mike Ratledge finds the perfect way to engage his complementary Lowrey organ and Hohner piano riffs into the jazz-rock paradigm that hearken back to the swinging 60s so close yet so suddenly so very far away. Likewise Hugh Hopper's grounding and stabilizing bass lines rein in the loose-wire horn sections augmented by Dean's frenetic sax attacks along with guest musicians Mark Charig (cornet player also of Keith Tippett fame), Nick Evans (trombonist of Keith Tippett fame), Jimmy Hastings (alto flute / bass clarinet of Caravan) and Alan Skidmore (tenor sax also of Keith Tippett fame).

The result of the heft of this brass heavy congregation steered the SOFT MACHINE sound into extreme avant-garde jazz-rock fusion territory which even added yet one more guest musician: Roy Babbington of Delivery to contribute his double bass. The tracks run the gamut of chilled to frenetic. The moderately improvised nine minute opening track "Teeth" takes influences ranging from the bop fueled epics of John Coltrane to the fuzzed out surrealism of Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" era. The track exhibits the perfect compromise between the structured hard bop chord patterns and sophisticated harmonic idioms with the unstructured improvisational soloing of Dean's hyperactive sax runs. "Kings And Queens" offers a completely chilled out contrast, a bass groove dominated Hopper contribution in between the more frenetic constructs created by Ratledge and Dean.

"Fletcher's Blemish" on the other hand is a Dean written piece that takes the free form avant-garde schizoid madness of crazed masters such as Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor and channels their unhinged tendencies through a flurry of tortured jagged sax attacks in a style that is directly lifted from Dean's solo debut. On the original album the second side of FOURTH was completely consumed by the four part suite "Virtually" which are treated as separate tracks but thematically connected and constructed out of a more collective approach of various extended themes that keep enough structure in the mix to allow individual members to go off on musical tangents all the while finding the perfect tension between composition and improvisation although like most of the running time of FOURTH, Dean does seem to get more than the lion's share of soloing time.

While utterly musically ostracized in the very band he helped create, Robert Wyatt may be silent and sitting in the back corner like a castigated child misbehaving on the playground but he is in fact on the album and it would be his last one with SOFT MACHINE before permanently solidifying his newly found Matching Mole (which as is commonly known a parody of SOFT MACHINE from the French translation "Machine molle.") However despite any demotion in creative input to the band's musical selections, Wyatt performs like a pro easily pounding out the heavy duty hardcore jazz drumming skills required of a seasoned veteran to handle when playing in a jazz-fusion ensemble of such magnitude and while he may have suffered a terrible accident which would rob him of his talents, on FOURTH his talents are eked out in a most satisfying way as he effortlessly and impeccably morphs his stylistic approach between the fuzzy psychedelic Gong inspired brume into the punishing freneticism of Dean's sax abuse segments in full hard bop mode.

SOFT MACHINE's FOURTH has been chastised and kicked around since it was released and to this very day remains substantially less revered than its predecessors as well as later releases with some even calling it the absolute nadir of the SOFT's vast and overarching career and i for one am quite disconcerted with how Wyatt's bandmates treated him and subjugated him to the role of a circus chimp who merely went through the motions of what he was told to perform, however at the same time i'm rating the music itself and as a lover of free form jazz and all things musically extreme, i have to fall on the side of loving this one with the caveat of agreeing with the almost universal consensus that it is indeed a step down from the SOFT's first three classics. One of the problems results of course from the obvious overreach of Elton Dean's influence which affects Ratledge's ability to stand out for much of the album despite his warm and inviting key runs filling every nook, cranny and cadence. Taken as a representative album of the Canterbury Scene, this one will surely disappoint but if accepted as a unique slice of early 70s jazz-fusion that happens to have a little of what came before in the mix with an emphasis on free form improv passages, then i have to say that this album easily achieves the "excellent" seal of approval.

— First review of this album —

This is a collection of bootleg recordings that in 2005 received official release on a German label. There are actually 4 different live performances on this recording, each with a different sound quality. Frustratingly there is NO information about the dates or band membership or anything included with the CD. However, I can tell by listening that all of these involve the classic fourth-era quartet of Wyatt (drums, voice), Ratledge (organ, e-piano), Hopper (basses), and Dean (sax, saxello), and so these recordings must date from 1970-1971. The four separate performances span across the two CDs, and not necessarily in order (whey they did this? well there is no information). While the sound quality is mostly poor, clearly all recorded on household cassette machines, but not as bad as other boots I own. Also, the label did a decent job applying modern software technology to cleaning up the tape hiss, and some of the performances are quite notable, so this is definitely not a one-star set. The main frustration is that a number of songs fade in or out (in three of the four shows), so you don't always get the whole song. Here is what I have come up with, based on the differences in sound quality, and what I think about each:

Performance 1: CD1, Track1: Slightly All the Time CD1, Track 2: Out-Bloody-Rageous CD1, Track 4: Mousetrap CD1, Track 5: Noisette CD1, Track 6: Backwards CD1, Track 7: Mousetrap (rep) CD1, Track 8: Hibou, Anemome and Bear CD2, Track 9: Eamon Andrews

This is all in mono, with only OK sound quality. Some very good playing, and an interesting transition between Slightly all the Time and Out-Bloody-Rageous which is worth hearing by mega-fans. Also, the long version of Eamon Andrews is worth it (unfortunately, they fade out Hibou just when a solo is beginning, though).

Performance 2: CD1, Track 10: Esther's Nose Job CD1, Track 11: Pigling Bland CD2, Track 1: Facelift CD2, Track 2: Moon in June

These are very good performances, but annoying fade in and out. Facelift is missing both its beginning (so, no organ solo:( and its end, and Moon in June fades out just after the main loud solo. I would have loved to have the whole peformances here, as it seems the band was really 'on' that night. But sound quality if poorer than P1, and in mono.

Performance 3: CD2, Track 3: Out-Bloody-Rageous CD2, Track 4: Facelift CD2, Track 5: Fire Engine Passing CD2, Track 6: Pig CD2, Track 7: Orange Skin Food CD2, Track 8: A Door Opens and Closes CD2, Track 9: 10:30 Returns to the Bedroom CD2, Track 10: Pigling Bland CD2, Track 11: 10:30 Returns to the Bedroom (rep)

This is the performance with the best sound quality - very good (for a bootleg), and in stereo, comparable to a number of the other official releases. Thankfully, there are no fade-outs so you get the entire performance here. The Esthers Nose Job set is great. The band is tight, although the soloing is generally short (only a very short fuzz-organ solo at the beginning of Facelift, unfortunately). The final track in the set (the reprise of "Returns to the Bedroom") is a notable for short Wyatt echo-voice and echo-drum solos and a few other crazy sounds. Those who don't like bootleg-quality sound will probably only want to listen to this set.

Performance 4: CD1, Track 3: Moon in June CD2, Track 12: I should have Known

This is the recording/performance with worst sound quality, mono, with still-audible tape hiss, and obviously from a tape that had seen better days. The performance of "I should have Known", nonetheless, is notable. It fades in, so you might not even recognize the song. Wyatt sings it very slowly, without all the usual rhythm or chord changes, and there is a drum solo through an echo unit, much longer than the one in the third performance.

The performances here are good, and the sound quality is decent on performance 3, so this does not deserve only 1 star. Saying this, it is likely to appeal only to those (like me) who can't get enough of live Third/Fourth-era Soft Machine recordings. So two PA stars.

Essential Soft Machine recording.

This is the BBC recording with Wyatt singing new lyrics to "Moon in June", which many feel is the penultimate version, and definitely a (if not THE) top example of the Canterbury sound. This set also includes the version of "Mousetrap" with with the three-piece brass section and the excellent trombone solo by Nick Evans on "Backwards" (which Caravan subsequently also covered in the middle of their "Hunting We Shall Go" suite on 'For Girls who Grow Plump in the Night'). Following this, there is the classic 1970-71 quartet of Wyatt, Ratledge, Hopper and Dean playing pieces from Third. All together, these are the same exact recordings that make up the second lp in the three-record best-of collection 'Triple Echo'. The second disc contains more quartet recordings of "Facelift", "Virtually", and "Neo Caliban Grides", and closing the side Wyatt's improv of "Dedicated to You but...". Rounding out the second disc are two songs recorded after Wyatt left and Phil Howard had joined: "Drop" and a real gem "As If". Both were recorded on Fifth, with "As if" recorded with John Marshall on drums, and that version is very clean and dry, not at all alive. This version with Howard on drums is about as close as one will get to having the song with Wyatt. It is fresh, dynamic, alive, and although I think Wyatt would have done an even better job, this is about as close as one can get to that alternate reality. It is really SO much better than the John Marshall version. The sound quality is excellent too. It all adds up to an essential album. Indeed, while these are BBC recordings not meant to be released as an official album, I consider this to be the second-best ever Soft Machine 'album', after Third, which I consider their masterpiece. I give this 9.4 out of 10 on my 10-point scale. Absolutely essential.

The first truly boring Soft Machine album.

There are actually two albums here, a live album and a studio album. Karl Jenkins had taken on the lead role, and Mike Ratledge, while still an official member and playing great solos, starting to recede from view. The live album is actually relatively decent, although much of the music is now being written by Jenkins and is not nearly on the same level as the earlier Softs albums (even Fifth). However, the studio album here lacks any sort of energy, even of the experimental, avant-garde or free-jazz kind. I really like long drawn-out avant-garde jazz experiments, including a lot of Hugh Hopper's drones (I even like the experimental sides of the Centipede Septober Energy album), but the studio album here is simply boring. It does not help that John Marshall's drumming is so straight. He sounds completely bored himself! (but for some reason unwilling to liven things up). On balance, I give this album 4.6 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 2 PA stars. Really, only the live album is worth a listen.

A flawed gem

Although it continues with much the same types of compositions as on Fourth, this is the first album without Robert Wyatt on drums and this is its Achilles heel. I actually really like the album, and have played it a ton of times over many years. I disagree with those who say it is boring noodling, as I think it is quite inventive - the first I know of that created a new sound by doubling the electric piano using a delay pedal. The compositions are great, and there are great distorted organ, fuzz bass, and sax/saxello solos. However, unfortunately, the drumming does not pull its weight. The first side, which features Phil Howard on drums is the (much) better of the two. Howard plays in a similar style as Wyatt on Fourth, albeit even more free (and thus less tied to any tempo). So, while not nearly as good as it would have been with Wyatt, side 1 is generally listenable. However, side 2 is painful. John Marshall is on drums here (Howard was fired before he could record on side 2), and he plays these songs very straight, very little improvisation, completely precise and very sparse. The contrast with Howard is stark. While Marshall would come into his own on later Soft Machine albums where they went full Mahavishnu-style Jazz Fusion and do very well (e.g. Bundles), on this album he simply does not fit the music. You can hear the problem right away if you compare the version of "As If" (the long song that opens side 2) here to the version on the Peel Sessions which features Phil Howard. The Peel Sessions version is vital, organic, full of life, pulling you along, albeit a bit temporally-challenged, while the version with Marshall is drab, dull, dead. It is really too bad Wyatt didn't drum on this album - it would have (likely) brought this up to or above the level of Fourth and given these recordings the vitality they deserve. I still love the rest of the playing, and the compositions - to my mind these pieces are better than most of what the Softs would produce afterward (particularly Sixth, but even the jazz fusion albums after that). This is innovative music. However, issues within the band meant they couldn't see how to make best use of these compositional gems, and ended up with some sub-par drumming/recordings. Saying this, "All White" is much better here than on the live album on Sixth, "Drop" is a classic Softs composition, up there with their best, and "As If" is also a fantastic composition (but the Peel Sessions album has the best version of that). On balance, I give this 6.1 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 3 PA stars.

This album is particularly special. Indeed, for me it ranks up there in the top 10-12 albums of all time. Thinking about it, its greatness should have been unlikely. The members were starting to get along less well. While Ratledge and Hopper wanted to move toward more mathematically-precise jazz-rock fusion, Wyatt remained passionate and untroubled by imperfections. They didn't like his singing, and so wrote complex instrumentals and brought in additional members temporarily to play the main lines, although they allowed him one side for his now-iconic Moon in June. The album was actually quite transitional, in between their psycheadelic first two albums and their later jazz/jazz-fusion albums. This is the only one to feature so many horn players, and they fairly quickly changed their sound on subsequent albums. The sound quality is pretty terrible, particularly for a studio album but the live side recording is equally muddy (Facelift). The music is mostly obtuse and should have been completely innacessible to most listeners, with one long (20 minute) piece on each side, creating a double album of only four songs. It begins with roughly four minutes of the most (to mainstream listeners) off-putting screeching distorted organ solo (but not recognizable as an organ, it is so crazy). It is a wonder that any record label put this out. It was likely mistakenly overlooked by CBC-Columbia's marketing department, or it is because it snuck in during that wonderful short period in the late 60s when record company execs had no clue what would sell and what wouldn't.

Thankfully it was released. The music is unlike virtually anything that would come before or after. It is not typical jazz fusion, although it shares *some* similarities with the free jazz being played by Miles and Weather Report around this time. Even though, like those bands, Third has a lot of improvisation, it also has a lot of complex tight brass lines in strange time signatures/phrasing, but which are very musical, with very difficult-to-play drumming (while Miles and others had great drummers mostly just jamming). The complex lines are particularly exemplary of Mike Ratledge's two pieces, which are very odd in that they are so difficult and angular, yet they are so strong they remain in one's head (I find myself humming them to myself, like my grandmother used to do with her 1940s-era radio clips). While Soft Machine would pursue a similar composition style on Fourth, only Teeth on that album comes close to the magic of this one. Perhaps the best known song on this album is Robert Wyatt's amazing Moon in June. While many others prefer the BBC Top Gear Peel Sessions version with the different lyrics, I prefer this one, for two reason: the amazing extended organ and bass soloing that goes well beyond any of the live versions (including the TG Peel version), and the section at the end of the song, in which Wyatt extends the piece with tape loops, odd violin lines and music concrete. A wonderful piece, and probably the most iconic Canterbury-style song ever. However, while I love Moon in June to death, perhaps my favourite few minutes on this album are the first ones with Ratledge's highly distorted feeding-back organ solo. It is paradigm-destroying. While others before and since have recorded highly dissonant sections of music, often to make a statement, they are usually there because they are NOT musical. But this one is SO musical, and feeds perfectly into the rest of the song (Facelift). It immediately marks the album as something new, out-there, wild, politically challenging. This is not normal jazz, not rock. Indeed, it has both a punk feel (like an in-your-face protest against mainstream music, or something) AND a jazz feel (like a great Coltrane solo). It works very well as music, while being somehow soul-enriching (sometimes when I am feeling down or had a bad day, I put this on and crank it, and always feel better). Then, right when it is craziest, the organ calms down to some beautiful but tense and tentative chords, signalling Hopper to come in with his fuzz-bass line which then leads to the main themes of the song. It works wonderfully.

This is one of the albums that has made up my life soundtrack. I still listen to it (even after >1000 listens), and still can't seem to get enough of live material from this era of SM. Speaking of progressive or experimental music in general, some music seems kindof weird the first time you listen to it, and never attains the status of 'music'. Some music only improves a bit with subsequent listens. Some music that you really like at first (or third) listen, but it gets boring by the 10th, or 100th listen. This album SHOULD have been one of those kinds of albums - I am sure some find it long and tedious. Some other SM albums fit that category. But this one sounds so musical each time I hear it. It is unique, soul-enriching. I give it 9.7 out of 10 on my 10-piont scale (not quite 10, due to poor sound quality, and the bass is mixed way too loud on Slightly All the Time).

Archetypical.

With each album, the Softs changed their sound considerably. Here they develop two long suites, Rhyvmic Melodies on the first side, and (mostly) Esther's Nose Job on the second side, with each formed by fusing otherwise disparate songs together. These (especially Esther's Nose Job) made up key parts of their live set in the early 70s. The more pop-based influences that Kevin Ayers brought to the band are receding here after Ayers departure, although Wyatt sings throughout the album (so it is still a vocal-based rock album), and Hugh Hopper on bass brings a more experimental and jazzy focus to the music (Brian Hopper, brother of Hugh, adds multiple saxophones for additional effect). The result is an iconic album, highly original, really stamped by all three members but particularly by Wyatt's presence. This music is still a mile away from what they would put on their next album ('Third'), but it is also almost a mile away from their debut, containing the seeds of their simultaneously structured and highly improvised compositions and live sets to follow. The Softs would never return to this spot, and no other band would either. Yet, this album I think more than any other contains the musical seed for what might be called the Canterbury-scene sound (perhaps together with Caravan's second and third albums). While not as amazing (in my opinion) as "Third" (which I think is still unparalleled, but very different), this is a must-have album. Absolutely essential, both musically and in terms of its historical importance. I give it 9.4 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 5 PA stars.

The beginning of so much...

A truly original, iconic album. Far better than the first Caravan album, this one really set the stage for the Canterbury scene that was to come (well, they both came from the Wilde Flowers, but that band hadn't released any album). The Softs were true innovators. I picked this up at a teenager without having heard any of the music or knowing what it sounded like, just on the basis of hearing that they played with Floyd at the UFO club. Of course, it doesn't sound anything like Floyd, but I really loved it, and then began searching out other Soft Machine albums. Every new album (and I picked them up almost in perfect sequence) was so different from the previous one. Although you can easily date this to the late 60s, and the sound quality is less than stellar, the music is so full of life, energy, and soul. Wyatt's vocals, even when out of tune, are so emotive, and very unique. Ditto for Kevin Ayers ultra-low vocals, and Ratledge's distorted rapid organ solos filled up the sound. "Hope for Happiness", the opener, is a classic summer-of-love anthem (so much so that Frank Zappa includes a reference to it in his own brilliant album 'We're Only In It for the Money'). The song "A Certain Kind", originally a Wilde Flowers tune, is very soulful, and "Why am I so Short?" is an iconic political statement. "Why are we Sleeping" helped Kevin Ayers forge a music career after he left the band, and he has a number of versions of this recorded (often under different names) on his own solo albums. Each of the songs here seagues into the other via impromptu improvisations, since they recorded this very quickly and so basically just played their set list in the studio. It flows seamlessly. The result is an album that is highly authentic and original, brimming with counter-culture energy, and containing the seeds of a world of great music to come. A fantastic document up there with the other great albums of the era (like Sgt. Pepper's, Are You Experienced, etc). I give this 9.3 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 5 PA stars.

Just forty years late in making this review and rediscovering this album after having owned the vinyl disc back in the Paleozoic Era, which I wasn't wild on at the time TBH. In retirement I've been catching up with old music that I'd missed. Unlike most, I find much of Soft Machine's much lauded, and more progressive, albums almost unlistenable and their Harvest period much more approachable without ever selling out.

Track by track:

1. Aubade (1:51) - a gentle pastoral guitar / alto sax duet - enjoyable background without being naff

2. The Tale of Taliesin (7:17) - Jenkins's atmospheric and hypnotic keyboard ostinato leads to an exotically tuneful head. This sails along gorgeously for a while before being abruptly interrupted by a brutally-shredded odd time guitar solo section.

Once the listener is beaten into submission the band slows back to the head, leading to a grandiose outro. (At the time of writing there is an outstanding YouTube live clip of this tune with a young Alan Holdsworth playing superbly, as John Etheridge does on this version). At this point they are sounding like an instrumental prog band with fusion influences). My favourite track on the album.

3. Ban-Ban Caliban (9:22) - the other epic-y piece, starting with a stereo-toggled electro synth sequence. This early early part of the the track reminds me of Passport's Ataraxia album - if Jazz Krautrock fusion isn't a category, it probably should be. New saxophonist, Alan Wakeman, soon enters and has his first chance to stretch out on the album, with some fine soprano work.

As the tune progresses the album for the first time sounds like the old Soft Machine of old before a bizarre, jarring change heralds in John Etheridge for another fast, old-time shred-fest duel with the similarly hyperactive Marshall.

Bassist Roy Babbington continues to play selflessly, holding the mayhem together akin to Rick Laird's anchor role on MO's Birds of Fire. Then a return to the "Krautrock fusion" Passport feel leading to the end with added drive and marimba. Excellent.

4. Song of Aeolus (4:31) - slow, atmospheric 6/8 tune in the vein of Jeff Beck's Goodbye Pork Pie Hat cover or John McLaughlin's The Unknown Dissident (which almost certainly took the same inspiration) but with more of a Floydish spaceyness. Luscious, soulful music. Excellent.

5. Out of Season (5:32) - Karl Jenkins loved beautiful, stately, hypnotic piano ostinatos, seemingly inspired by Philip Glass's minimalism. Etheridge joins with a melodic and sophisticated head and the rest of the band work around the ostinato. Nice.

6. Second Bundle (2:37) - starts with more of Karl Jenkins's psychedelic new-agey keys (move over Miquette Garaudy) - enjoyable background music without being naff

7. Kayoo (3:27) - drum solo piece by John Marshall. Musical use of bells and space early gave way to cacophonous shredding. At this length, it would probably work well live but is wasted in the studio IMO (maybe should have been a coda consisting of just the first minute)

8. The Camden Tandem (2:01) - drum duet between the two Johns - Etheridge on guitar and Marshall on drums. I guess it wouldn't be Soft Machine album without at least some fierce harshness. This tune is seemingly inspired by Mahavishnu Orchestra's Noonward Race and, especially so, by King Crimson's Groon (which I much prefer to either).

9. Nexus (0:49) - a lovely grandiose introduction to the next tune. Why did they make it a separate tune? No one knows.

10. One Over the Eight (5:25) - let's get down, baby, it's Funkytime! Well, it started out funky and again reminded me of Ataraxia's edgy moments with a stylish and intelligently-built sax lead. The jam gradually loosens and intensifies until a new bass riff is introduced and, with Wakeman's tenor by now honking, wailing and squawking we're sounding more like the old Soft Machine again before the entire thing falls into a horrid cacophony that thankfully, bot not too soon, shifts into a 6/8 outro. As a drummer, I find that cacophony is far more fun to play than to listen to. Otherwise excellent.

11. Etika (2:21) - during this era it was fashionable to let the guitarist have an acoustic tune for variation. This is that track, arguably better than most, and enough edge to be more than background.