THE SOFT MACHINE

4.5 stars. After hearing of John Marshall's passing I ordered this record just to have the last studio album that John played on. Is it sad that he passed after announcing his retirement after this record? He got to do what he loved right to the end which I think is pretty cool. Loved him when he was with NUCLEUS and it was 1972 when he joined SOFT MACHINE and I really feel he is the king of drum solos. His rhythm partner of late Roy Babbington retired after the previous studio album "Hidden Details" but returns to play bass on "Penny Hitch" which he did originally on "Seven" plus he plays a duet you could say with the new bass player Fred Baker on "Now! Is The Time". Fred by the way has played in the past on solo albums by Pip Pyle, Phil Miller and Dave Sinclair so very much qualified to be here.

The only thing keeping me from giving this 5 stars is that 3 of 4 song section beginning with "Joy Of A Toy" from the debut and included "Whisper Back" and "The Stars Apart" which are all fine just not in the same league as the rest of the album in my opinion. The rest of the album is subtle and chilled. Feels like some improvizing is going on at times with the drums, bass and whoever else isn't the soloist during these passages. Surprisingly trippy and atmospheric and Theo Travis helps with this adding electronics throughout the album. Attention to detail and I love Marshall on here, he seems like he's playing random stuff a lot but man with the Fender Rhodes, those guitar expressions, electronics and flute I just love the mood. It really was when I sat down and really listened to this album that it clicked big time.

The spirit of "Softs" is very much a part of this record in fact this would have been a great followup to it. This is headphone music, just so much going on and yet it is a reflective recording as well. I am blown away by most of these tracks but I think my favourite is "Fell To Earth" where we get some grit in that guitar and the opening sax could be Mel Collins from his "Island" performance. Some experimental stuff going on here, I mean check it out 2 minutes in. The closer "Back In Season" is a highlight with the electric piano in fact "Softs" really comes to mind here. Love the flute too.

Again the flute and Fender Rhodes are incredible on the opener "Careless Eyes", some soaring guitar leads too. Love "Penny Hitch" from one of my favourite SOFT MACHINE albums "Seven" and "Crooked Usage" the longest piece on here at 8 1/2 minutes. This song encapsulates what this album is about with the improv sounding bits with no melody, the flute and electric piano all shine and it's experimental late. "The Visitor At The Window" reminds me of the covid situation where many meeting apparently were done this way. I like it but I like "Maybe Never" even better. It's so chilled with the fluttering flute and guitar expressions along with the electronics, bass and drums.

With Marshall and Babbington out of the picture I was thinking it might be time to put SOFT MACHINE to bed and then I heard this album. Keep them coming boys!

This is a live document of the 50th anniversary World tour SOFT MACHINE performed starting early in 2019. This show was from February 1st 2019 in LA at The Baked Potato. Love that late 50s early 60's cover art that is actually from Las Vegas.

The band offers a big thankyou to Moonjune Records owner Leonardo Pavkovic suggesting the tour and album would not have happened without his tireless effort and support. I was glad to have spent time with "Hidden Details" recently, that 2018 record, as it does get represented here as being the most recent SOFT MACHINE release.

The highlights for me are not surprising as we get plenty of nods to the past on this one hour recording and I will list those songs but the one track from "Hidden Details" I'm kind of taken with is "Life On Bridges" and it will just make my top five here. The song reminds me of NUCLEUS when they were at their melancholic best.

Number one song though is "The Tale Of Taliesin" from "Softs" and an all time favourite for me from this band. I don't have this as a live track except here so it certainly adds to the value of this recording for me. Etheridge is awesome, come on! The first 3 minutes are stunning. The other three tracks that stand out for me are "Out-Bloody-Rageous", "Hazard Profile Pt.1" and "The Man Who Waved At Trains" all SOFT MACHINE classics.

You know down the road we're going to get some archival releases from this period and later but as of right now this is the last record of John Marshall playing live. We get his short 2 minute drum solo called "Side Burn" but I like his performance on "The Tale Of The Taliesin" the best. I'll say it again Theo Travis deserves a lot of credit for taking the SOFT MACHINE bull by the horns and being the main composer and producer. A solid 4 stars.

This live performance by Soft Machine took place after the studio sessions for Bundles, but before that album came out; Allan Holdsworth is still with the band, and the setlist is very much focused on material from that album plus additional improvisations, rather than delving to any great depth into the band's back catalogue - a symptom, perhaps, of their radically reconfigured musical direction, with Holdsworth's guitar being brought to the fore.

To my ears, there's only one real clunker here, and that's JSM - a drum solo from John Marshall which manages to be everything everyone dislikes about 1970s drum solos. Sure, sure, it's technically adept, but it's fairly soulless stuff, a demonstration of dextrous proficiency without any compositional substance behind it, and it drags on for ten horrid minutes. Trim it off and you'd have four and a half stars easy, because the rest of this absolutely cooks - as it is, it's at the low end of the four star range.

This archival live release from Soft Machine captures their Montreux performance from 1974, which unfolded in same month as the studio sessions for Bundles. That means this is one of the earliest live documents of Allan Holdsworth's brief but transformative stint in the band, and it's clear that his arrival has already provided a new dimension to the group's sound, bringing in guitar when they'd never been a guitar band previously.

Much of the material here comes from Bundles, with only a few compositions from the Fifth to Seven period rounding out the set, and Holdsworth's guitar work is given centre stage, the group perhaps realising the necessity of selling the world on a version of the group which had electric guitar as prominent as it was from Bundles onwards. The end result is a pretty solid live release, provided you dig what the band were doing on Bundles, their sole Holdsworth-era album.

This live concert recorded for BBC radio hails from a point midway between the completion of Fifth and the beginnings of Six; John Marshall is now well-installed behind the drum kit as Robert Wyatt's long-term replacement, transtional drummer Phil Howard having taken his leave midway through the Fifth sessions, but Karl Jenkins has yet to join the group (and Elton Dean hasn't left yet).

As such, this represents one of the last glimmerings of Soft Machine before Jenkins began making his own extensive compositional contributions. About as much of Six is credited to him as Mike Ratledge, a mark of how his influence would eventually come to be the main creative force in the band's later years. As it stands, I find Softstage somewhat more compelling than Fifth or Fourth, two albums which I always felt bore the scars in the studio of the circumstances around their recording, whose material has always across somewhat better in a live context. As the close of the post-Wyatt/pre-Jenkins chapter, it's pretty solid.

It's got a little more going for it than its predecessor, but not much. There's very little spark in these performances and no sense of adventure or refreshment in these compositions. The title track at least boasts a catchy theme and "Fell To Earth" has a pretty cool walking bass section (courtesy of new bass player Fred Baker who along with John Etheridge seems to be either the only one who gives a hoot or the only one who manages to transmit this band's still amazing live energy onto tape) but the general tendency of songs on this album is to just sort of plod along until they don't anymore. The loungy, sanitized rearrangement of "Joy Of A Toy" and the pointless, scholastic rerecording of "Penny Hitch" don't help. There's undoubtedly more embarrassing ways to spend the tail end of your career but it's still a little disappointing to see what was once one of Britain's most boundary-pushing jazz/rock bands reduced to putting out sickeningly safe middle-of-the-road albums like this every couple of years.

Among the first of many archival Soft Machine releases to be put out by the Cuneiform label (it was preceded by Spaced, an odd set of tracks knocked out to accompany a dance performance), Virtually presents a performance originally recorded for Radio Bremen in March 1971. We're coming right towards the end of Robert Wyatt's tenure in the band here - no more vocals, and perhaps a certain tension in the group exists as a result, but he's giving it all with his drumming here.

A lot of archival stuff from this period has emerged since, but Virtually is a pretty strong set with good sound quality, and that might explain why both Cuneiform and others keep going back to this well - Soft Machine in this period absolutely cooked. Once it became apparent that treasures like this were lying around in the vaults, the hunt was on, so perhaps we should give Virtually credit for setting the bar for this sort of release.

Archival live releases from Soft Machine have become thick on the ground these days, but releases like this one show why - the band were absolutely dynamite in in this phase of their existence and the recording quality on this appearance in Norway is superb. This hails from around the release of Fourth, so we're quite late in Robert Wyatt's tenure in the group; vocal performances and psychedelic whimsy are out, growling jazz fusion is in. You get much of Third here (minus, of course, the vocals-heavy Moon In June), plus selections from Fourth and early takes on material which would materialise on Fifth, plus a few numbers which Soft Machine extensively performed live but didn't really set down in the studio; the overall sound is a bit sharper and more disciplined than Third, a bit more lively than Fourth and Fifth.

Yet another Soft Machine archival release from Cuneiform captures performances from January to March 1970 - in other words, square in the period when Third was coming together. The sonic transformation from out-there psychedelic delirium to cutting edge jazz fusion has been largely complete, Robert Wyatt's vocals have been largely bypassed, and the short-lived dual saxophone lineup of Elton Dean and Lyn Dobson is the hot new feature of their music these days. Between this, Mike Ratledge's gruesome and haunting manipulations of his organ and keyboards, and the Hopper/Wyatt rhythm section on good form, it's a snapshot of the Soft Machine in one of their most creative eras. The sound mix is not what it could be, but is reasonably good for 1970.

More than a few eyebrows were raised when the SOFT MACHINE LEGACY lineup returns 5 years later calling themselves SOFT MACHINE. Babbington and Marshall have been part of SOFT MACHINE since 1973's "Seven" and John Etheridge jumped on board for "Softs" but playing with them live before that when Holdsworth left. So they are certainly legit using the name and the music here to my ears sounds more like SOFT MACHINE than SOFT MACHINE LEGACY. I have enjoyed this record right from the first spin and if not for tracks 4 and 5 I'm thinking of a higher rating. Those two tracks are good but too laid back and mellow in my opinion.

This is so good though, I am a little surprised. Theo Travis the young guy composed most of the material plus they cover a couple of old SOFT MACHINE tracks. Travis feels like the new Karl Jenkins to be honest adding electric piano to the sax and flute. The cover art is very cool and done by Lasse Hoile. The album was recorded by the legendary Jon Hiseman who sadly passed before it was released hence the dedication "In memory of Jon Hiseman a wonderful musician who engineered the album so brilliantly. Thanks to him and Barbara who took such good care of us during the recording." Man John Marshall is looking old, I actually just looked up his age only to find someone who released a statement saying Marshall had just passed. Hope that's wrong but he retired after the followup to this "Other Doors" while Babbington retired after this album guesting one last time on "Other Doors" on two tracks with his buddy John Marshall.

Oh the music? I am surprised and so impressed at how experimental some of this is. Surprised at Etheridge letting his hair down so often. Marshall just sounding so random much of the time. And Theo with the flute and sax of course including some dissonant and inventive moves but his electric piano play is something I really appreciate bringing "Seven" to mind. A top five includes the opener, the title track and there is some intensity here. Nasty guitar in fact around 4 1/2 minutes in. The two SOFT MACHINE covers are awesome and they help make this special. They being "The Man Who Waved At Trains" and "Out Bloody Rageous(Part 1)". This album ends strongly with those last three tracks and "Life On Bridges" is my favourite track on here and the longest at 8 minutes. This one and the next "Fourteen Hour Dream" round out my top five. There is some otherworldly music on here too my friends including the closer "Breathe" and the "Out Bloody Intro".

This album and Rik's review of "Other Doors" has me tracking down the most recent SOFT MACHINE effort "Other Doors" which could be the last SOFT MACHINE record and that would be a shame.