last good soft machine album?

2!!!!!

that is my contrarian but sincere opinion. i used to have the first four, and i probably miss the 4th more than the 3rd.

i dunno, i guess the first four are "good" but 2 is the last great one.

i really like "the soft weed factor" but i found sixth somewhat overly tentative on the whole. i like the great wobbly organ noises on fourth and fifth but in general thought they were very very boring compared to the 2nd side of third. i listened a bit to seventh tonight though and i thought it was mindblowing, so now i'm really confused.

1 > Jet Propelled Photographs > 3 > 2 > 4 > my interest in exploring any further

0

'third'

reminds me of 45:33.

Side one of 5 with Phil Howard on drums.

Studio tracks on "Six" are well worth checking out - honestly, if some German group had done them, there'd probably be about three threads on that album. The live tracks are boring however. Can't remember anything about the 7th album, tho I've got it somewhere. Never heard any subsequent albums.

holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecma6vrB3rI

lol geir

haha. weird. they're totally melodic prog

dope. that's from 1978???

xp too much rhythm and dissonance iirc

xp ya, but 'i feel love' was from 77, so....

haha i never realised they got to the point of being one of those bands with no one from the original lineup at all though

that track is great, thanks jaxon!

hahahahahaha wow that is fucking swell

man I found a copy of 7 on vinyl in near-mint for easy money, I've always heard it's diminishing returns after 4 so I'd never heard it but I thought why not give it a try...what the hell y'all. this is, for the most part, outstanding stuff. there's a couple of tracks where they miss the mark and just sound kinda leaden, but otherwise this is so good....dreamy, spacey, really stoney in the very best sense. they barely try to get all "out" any more in an aggressive way so maybe ppl miss that? but this record is really really good imo

Yeah, I also don't get why people underrate the later albums. I like them all.

LOVE "Carol Ann" from 7 - reminds me of Coltrane's ballads.

I have this guy and I enjoy it thoroughly.

"hazard profile" is not bad, though i loathe holdsworth's guitar playing style.

xp that looks like a great place to start with this stuff, thanks

Oh yeah 7 is great, especially "Penny Hitch"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv_h6T5vRwA

I played Bundles and Softs a few years ago and was kind of surprised to find them enjoyable (esp Bundles), though no match for 7. The fact that I haven't gone back to them may say something, though.

I think if I think of them more as Nucleus under a different name than Soft Machine with different people they might be more enjoyable.
Just kind of wish they had decided not to use the name that denotes the band that put out the first couple of lps.

I'd really like to hear the 4 piece with Andy Summers improvising raga guitar, haven't come across any recordings of them though.

Somebody has just re-upped the US tour 1968 recordings to Dime last week. Pretty great set that is, Dada Insanity Vol 3 is its name.

I'm not surer I've heard the last couple of numbered lps

i'll go at least as far as 7. "tarabos"!

It's "Third" for me, but only as found on the "BBC Radio 1967 - 1971" comp.

Alive and Well recorded in Paris has Soft Space, which makes it a good album.

https://softmachine-moonjune.bandcamp.com/album/hidden-details-hd

^ a contender from 2018!

We are doing a "George Washington's ax" as far as Soft Machine goes with this.

That said, I'm planning on seeing them in Los Angeles at the end of January.

you mean a "ship of theseus"

Mid to late 70s members are as good as we'll get now, so I'm all in.

yeah this album is good. they're definitely firmly a fusion band at this point but Theo Travis is pretty great and I'll be seeing them in Berkeley myself

Now that I've heard and completely fallen for Live at the Baked Potato, I guess I need to go back and check out Hidden Details, which I'd missed completely.

Otherwise my answer to this is Seven, which is great!

I will never not rep for Seven. It's got their best cover art too

You guys are making me wonder if I shouldn't be so narrow-minded: so far I've only listened to the ones with Wyatt, incl. several live sets legitimized etc. by Cuneiform over the years, maybe with more to come---comments here, while listening to freebies on bandcamp:Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud? Lotta good stuff, but eventually I had my fill of their all-instrumental shows.

Weird: that doesn't look like a link, but it is, it works. It's alive, I tell you, it's alive!

there is plenty of good stuff after '5', even some after '7' but you have to pick and choose and you have to be open minded about cheesy late 70s / early 80s jazz rock

I've only heard the first 2, the first album is great but the 2nd I didn't like that much :/

I have heard that from a few people before, think Volume Two takes a while to dig its claws in, can't remember not loving it, but I have heard it too many times to recall first impressions now. Third is the one people usually cite as the best (not me, but many people), 4 and 5 are also good, though more generic psych-jazz and much less mind-blowing.

Man, I gotta say it's probably the new one, Other Doors. Still obviously a different beast from the Wyatt years and the '70s, but this might be my favorite of the current era yet!

Wish Nucleus had kept their own name so you didn't have to think mid 70s fusion lps were bad Soft Machine.
They can be like semi interesting in themselves. Just don't want to be going Wyatt was so much more interesting. Like he probably was contemporarily

RIP Mike Ratledge, the longest serving member of Soft Machine.

I fell asleep last night listening to Zappa on Spotify and when I woke up I was all “what is this crazy organ noise jam?” It was “So Boot If At All” from the first Softs album.

RIP Mike

The way the first two LPs are broken up into tracks is ridiculous, only made sense in the vinyl age. can't imagine going straight into So Boot If At All without Why Am I So Short? before it.

It's out-bloody-rageous! Side-long tracks or nothing, as they soon realized.

I listened to Nucleus Live in Bremen this morning. Very Miles Davis early electric influenced plus Ray Russell on noisy guitar.
Hadn't listened to it in a very long time.
But was stuck with the question of why they stopped thinking being Nucleus was good and went and gradually took over a more leftfield band and adopt their name.

Why couldn't they remain as separate decent bands. Though Wyatt's pre accident band stuff and idiosyncratic post accident material might not have happened and I do like Little Red Record and Rock Bottom.

Do like SM studio stuff up to at least Third and what live materiàl with Wyatt on-board I've heard.

I know that Ratledge is primarily associated with the fuzz organ leads, but I'm always reminded of his very slow, sustained wah-wah chords rocking gradually back and forth. They make me think of a peaceful, fully aware state of mind.

I like Soft Machine fine - especially around that 5/6/7 kinda era actually

BUT the Mike Ratledge soundtrack for Riddles of the Sphinx is a real favourite for certain uncertain nights - sublime cosmic noodling

OK, going to answer the original question, one LP per day.

The Soft Machine (1968)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3d/The_Soft_Machine-album.jpg

A perfect LP, how the three of them make such a rich variety of songs just unfathomable, perfect sweet point between psych, prog and jazz.

a good album = yes

Dedicated to You But You Weren't ListeningVolume Two (1969)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Soft_Machine-Volume_Two-Cover.jpg

I have known quite a few people who liked 1 and 3 immediately but were turned off by this, and it doesn't help that side a is taken up by Rivmic Melodies, which is kind of a sprawling mess, and the way the track is chopped up into so many pieces on the CD release (apparently a maximising publishing rights deal) really does not help, but even this really comes alive in the second half with some just stunningly beautiful sections, especially "Dada Was Here" and "Thank You Pierrot Lunaire." Side b has standalone tracks As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still (perfect example of that warm rainy sound cf. "English Weather") and Dedicated to You But You Weren't Listening (sonically very different from everything else but a great example of solo Wyatt, though it's a Hopper song) then into the 10 minutes of Esther's Nose Job, which again starts in a perhaps offputting way (this time as straight up free jazz) before turning into something wonderful by the end. Wyatt's drums on here are maybe his most creative ever, and I love Mike's "Roobarb & Custard" organ noises. Another masterpiece.

a good album = yes

2 is my favourite. First side is total genius.

the way the track is chopped up into so many pieces on the CD release (apparently a maximising publishing rights deal)

Apparently it was Frank Zappa who recommended they do this - on the original album, not the CD - for that very reason.

I do love Rivmic Melodies but can see why the start of it especially puts some people off, it's almost a novelty record with the "British Alphabet" sections for example. Wr always listened to it as part of a 1+2 CD and it helps to have that as a structure because you do feel immediately thrown in at the deep end with the way it starts otherwise.

Apparently it was Frank Zappa who recommended they do this - on the original album, not the CD - for that very reason.

I think there was some absurd rule in the US at the time where album royalties would be paid on ten songs, irregardless of how many actual songs were on the record. Which is why prog bands would always divide the tracks into titled sections, to get their royalties up to the minimum. This is my understanding, could be wrong mind.

Well you get paid royalties per song, so the more song titles the better, right?

I think there was a standard "LP = 10 songs" royalty rate instituted at some point, but that might have been in reaction to Zappa/Soft Machine-style song publishing games. It's true that King Crimson's debut had the subtitles added to bring them up to Atlantic Records' 10 songs per album minimum.

Don't mean to turn back the time machine, but I don't suppose anyone ranks the 1967 demos AKA Jet Propelled Photographs with the subsequent records? Most of the songs were redone by the group or Ayers solo, and Ratledge in particular sounds really restrained.

There's some good stuff from those sessions, but the bits which survived for Volume One were much better done there. I do like the debut single, gives a good idea of what an LP with Daevid Allen would have been like (so not quite as good) - I put together an imaginary Soft Machine 0 compilation before, might share it.

Listening to Volume Two again, this is really the "something for everyone" Soft Machine record. For the first time, Ratledge really gets to do his thing over bizarre syncopated time signatures, and horns appear for the first time, but Wyatt is still singing often enough, there's still a touch of Ayers's silliness and it's arguably as psych as it is prog or fusion. I guess the only vital musical element they had yet to add were the tape loops.
The Spanish bits in "Dada Was Here" have an amazing transcendental effect every time I listen that probably tilts me slightly towards favouring Side 1.

No Ayers actually playing on Volume Two, that's Hugh Hopper, though plenty of it dates from his time and As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still is about him and features snatches of his tunes.

The Spanish bit is magical, yup.

No Ayers actually playing

Right, I meant the "spirit" of his silliness, like the alphabet recitation.

oh right, yes definitely there in spirit

also "a few fives to take away the taste of all those sevens"

hey wait I LOVE Jet Propelled Photographs! jeez c'mon it's great

Don't you find the "lounge" organ quaint? What about the guitar fumbling all over the place?

I mean, I'm glad it exists but the flaws and weaknesses are glaring.

all part of the charm for me, ymmv etc

really wish they would do a legit reissue of that 1st 45 as well

I recall raising Volume Two in a thread about personal favourite records situated within substantial discographies one otherwise didn't care much for. It wasn't a perfect fit because I certainly didn't detest anything I'd heard, just kinda sorta never got around to properly absorbing much of the fusion stuff. (And admittedly skipped ONE to get to TWO a not inconsiderable number of times on my olde two-fer CD lol.)

TWO still frequently sounds like the possibly the best thing ever. But there's no justification for my continued ignorance of later recordings, so I'll shall take this week's sad tidings as my cue to smarten myself up!

Just remembered a friend of mine *met Mike Ratledge. My friend was studying philosophy and was at some do with his philosophy professor and was introduced Mike Ratledge - I think Mike Ratledge had been the best man at the professor's wedding. Pretty sure he told me that Ratledge referred to Robert Wyatt as "the drummer", which is interesting because I remember reading an interview where Wyatt called Ratledge "the organ player". Anyway, before Soft Machine, Ratledge had studied philosophy at Oxford and apparently Michael Dummett described him as one of the best students he'd ever had.

(*He also met Robert Wyatt but I think I've told that story elsewhere on ILX).

a friend of mine *met Mike Ratledge

*He also met Robert Wyatt

No, I won't be impressed til he meets Phil Howard, or William Burroughs

Despite Ratledge's solo songwriting credit for "Pig", apparently he did not actually write a lyric suggesting that any time spent with women is wasted if they are wearing clothing.

hey it's time "we" could have spent nude bare naked, so Robert is also sans clothes (and yeah it's clearly his lyric isn't it)

so Robert is also sans clothes

Just look at half the photos of him from this era for proof

Third (1970)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Soft_Machine_Third.jpg

Ok, so greatest LP of all time, but the last two were that too, this one just more famous for some reason. What I love here is the warm, fuzzy, drizzly 1970 production, there is nothing out there that sounds quite this comfortable for me, even at its most avant-garde moments, and you know there are loads of those. Facelift starts with almost five minutes of discordant organ feedback which sounds stark and challenging even for free jazz, this doesn't continue all through the 19 minutes of course, I always think this one is such a journey through different worlds. Slightly All The Time is I think my favourite song of all time, as I said on the music league, I am able to play the whole thing in my head I've listened to it so many times. Elton Dean's saxophone solo in the last five minutes in particular is absolutely the most beautiful thing anyone has ever recorded. I am always a bit put off by the start of Moon In June, I like it well enough and I can admire it for sure, but it doesn't grab me by the soul like the first two sides did. Of course by the end it always wins me over, but I still feel odd that it's the most famous side. Then finally there's Out-Bloody-Rageous, which would in any other context be a monumental closer, but here feels a bit more normal than the other sides, I have used it in more mixes than anything else here because of its unusual structure though, and the organ loops feel so futuristic, and fuck it yeah this is amazing too.

a good album = yes

How does one even do that bending-organ-notes thing? A wee knob or pedal or something?

I've not heard Third in quite a while. I'll play along...

The delayed rock-ish, er, contours 5 minutes into "Facelift" feel like exactly the sort of "this is prog" motif that may have repelled infant me but yeah, everything feels warm and fuzzy nowadays. "Slightly All the Time" is unrelentingly pretty... all the time, really. I clearly underrate this one; I mean, I burrow into way too much faceless library/soundtrack stuff in pursuit of adjacent cosy turn-of-the-70s vibes lol. The Wyatt-isms of "Moon in June" are a fairly easy sell despite somewhat discordant diversions. The reappearance of chunks of "That's How Much I Need You Now" is fab. "Out-Bloody-Rageous" is again several different flavours of pretty though it arguably dwells a few bars too long in some repetitive grooves. Maybe. Sort of. Still good though.

I probably should have had an actual physical copy of this all along, but I've never even *seen* it in any format.

best (by far - it's only grown in my estimation) Soft Machine album: Volume Two
best Soft Machine tune: Top Gear/John Peel/BBC original version of Moon In June
amazingly, my first Soft Machine album was the triple LP comp Triple Echo, which I ordered from my local Camelot Music in 1980, bless PhonoLog!

Isn't all of Third on the BBC Sessions comp? I love all those versions better than the LP.

Most of Third is on BBC sessions, yes, would only say Moon In June is an improvement though, lots of it feels like unpolished live performance, love all of these but ultimately would choose Third over it.

Fourth (1971)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/Soft_machine-fourth.jpg

Basically the same lineup for this, so why do I never seem to play it? On a first listen it has all just kind of washed over me. Teeth and Kings & Queens are both very pleasant but also kind of uninspired compared to Third. Fletcher's Blemish is straight-up free jazz, but it doesn't really suit them, it's strangely anonymous. Virtually is another side-long suite, the last two parts of which are very pretty, maybe the best bit of the LP. I dunno, going to give it another spin and see if it clicks with me this time.

(xp) Well the whole band are playing on the BBC version of "Moon In June", the album version is mostly Robert Wyatt solo.

OK, on a re-listen Kings and Queens is pretty good, almost has that warm haze of Slighty All The Time, only the production is a bit too cold and clinical. Everything else is not improving really.

a good album: just about

I first heard Fourth a long time after Third, after searching for a copy of it for years, and I was really disappointed that it seemed to be so much of a replica of the previous record (the other example that springs to mind: Country Life after Stranded). Obviously I was expecting the same kind of leaps that they had made between their previous albums.
After many listens, I feel it's got its own taste. Elton Dean is more central; Ratledge condenses his work on the previous record down to a very complicated nine minutes of "Teeth", while Hopper's "Virtually" ends in a long brood. Even Wyatt shows what an inventive drummer he is by somehow giving rhythmic impetus to a long stretch of "Virtually Part 1" in 7/4 time, playing nothing but hi-hat and barely grazing the cymbals. This despite Ratledge being three times his size on the front cover.

Re: bending organ notes, on tonewheel organs this can be done either by very quickly clicking the main power switch on and off, causing a downward wobble (Keith Emerson used to do this in The Nice all the time) or reclicking the start motor switch (Hammond B3 and C3 have two power switches, one for the start motor and one for the main motor), for an up-and-down siren sort of thing.

!!! Oh wow! Certainly didn't anticipate that explanation.

Fifth (1972)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/Soft_Machine_-_5.png

Their first LP after Wyatt left / was fired, they went through a couple of different drummers, used session musicians, so it it further down the dumper they go? Nope, this is probably their best work post-Third. All moody, noir fusion stuff, really tight and taut and never meandering, even the brief snatches of free jazz all fit the vibe. I had this LP at uni and listened to it quite a bit, could not tell you the names of any individual tracks, just an album to put on and play through.

A good album = yes

Yes! I listened to 4 and 5 last night and was surprised to form much the same impression. (Contrary to my vague expectation of a trend approximating uninterrupted exponential decay. Based on nothing much, as 5 is the earliest LP I have no particular recollection of ever sampling at all!)

(Also leapt ahead to Bundles for some reason, perhaps because it seems to have it's own little fanclub, and... couldn't get through it, lol. I'll come back later.)

I agree that Fifth is good and consistent, but they've started to lose the twists and drama that made the earlier records exciting. The atmosphere is still there, but each track comes in, does what's expected of it, and leaves without fuss.

I think that applies even more so to Six, which I'm midway through listening to (it's almost as long as Third)

Was Fourth the first example of a rock group that previously used singing making an entirely instrumental album?

(Much to Robert Wyatt's annoyance).

I guess Lumpy Gravy might count?

Also Jack Bruce's Things We Like from 1970.

Jack Bruce, later of Soft Machine

Six (1973)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cf/Soft_Machine-Six.jpg

First off, what a horrible cover, no idea what that's supposed to be, Krang's backside? Inside we have two discs, one live and one studio, but both very much in the vein of Fourth and Fifth, pleasant unchallenging fusion jazz, sometimes it's pretty good, I would single out E.P.V. from the live disc and Chloe and the Pirates from the studio one as highlights. This is their first record with Karl Jenkins but he seems to have had very little impact so far, though he has five songs credited to him in one way or another, you would never guess there was a new member, let alone one who was about to change their style so completely. Anyway, a long LP but I enjoyed listening to it.

a good album? yes

Just enjoyed this smooth segue in Brian Hopper's Wikipedia entry:

The death of two bandmates in the early 1970s discouraged Hopper from pursuing a proper career in music, so he went into agricultural crop protection research and development instead.

I get it

Studio side of Six is good if a bit insubstantial, the live side is OK if you like that sort of thing (I don't).

Haven't heard this one. Saw it in a record store in North Bay, seriously had to question if I wanted to look at such a thing in my house.

Seven (1973)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Soft_machine-seven.jpg

Soft Machine are now 3/4 former Nucleus people, but you can't really tell yet, largely because the combination of Ratledge's Fender Rhodes with sax over the top naturally lends itself to the sound they've had since Third. The best track here is easily "Tarabos" on side A, everyone just sounds on top of their game. The closer "Down The Road" is probably the best of the rest, just a groovy jam. There is nothing actually bad on this LP, but large stretches sound like deliberately inoffensive library music of the sort the BBC used to play as a filler behind the test card, a sign for the direction Jenkins was about to take them.

a good album = yeah, it's fine.

Not sure how I came to be better acquainted with 7 than most of them, but I really don't mind it! The production music comparisons do seem OTM though. Indeed I even seem to get the rather earworm-y "Nettle Bed" confused with the similarly jaunty opener on the Rubber Riff thing Jenkins eventually oversaw for the De Wolfe library.

back in the 1980's I used to own the U.S. version of Seven, which has a boring non-gatefold cover featuring the 4 bandmember's photos from the inside of the gatefold. always coveted the UK cover, which turned out to be even better than expected when I finally got around to ordering it. I've always loved the track "Carol Ann".

ok ok I'm caving, I get paid tomorrow and am gonna snag that cheap set linked above

I have been a lifelong "nothing after 3" guy

lol, I did the same early in the week (though it's still in the mail)

high five! thread delivers

deliberately inoffensive library music

I always got "theme music for mid-70s educational public television math or science show" from "Nettle Bed" in particular. "Penny Hitch" is the piece that comes to mind when I think of this record, though I agree Ratledge's compositions are probably more exciting (though it's a shame he had to rip off John McLaughlin along the way).

Just today I got recommended a clip of them from French TV rehearsing and recording "Teeth" from Fourth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_DWKVB7riM

"Penny Hitch" is on the recent Bob Stanley comp "Cafe Exil" and it really jumped out at me (who's also a nothing-after-3rd guy). Is it an outlier in their catalog?

Bundles (1975)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/Soft_Machine_-_Bundles.jpg

Straight away the first impression is this does not sound anything like Soft Machine, and this is due to the influence of a new member - no, not Karl Jenkins, I mean new-hire guitarist Allan Holdsworth. Soft Machine hadn't had a permanent guitarist since Daevid Allen was refused entry to the UK in August 1967 (though they did have Andy Summers on that US tour in 68) and the lack of a guitar is kind of central to their sound. Having Holdsworth do his bluesy shredding while John Marshall keeps a fairly steady beat, this sounds more like rock music than they have for ages. Though it isn't what I expect from them, Hazard Profile (part 1) isn't that bad, I can appreciate the boldness of the new direction. However parts 2-5 are genuinely bad, Jenkins has chosen the cheesiest possible synthesiser sound and for the first time I'm thinking "what is this terrible shit?"
Side 2 does pick up slightly, including two short tracks written by Ratledge as he was heading out of the door, but even the best of these - Peff - deteriorates into a mess of clashing instruments towards the end. The rest of the LP is at best average library music, at worst naff muzak.

a good LP = no

Penny Hitch did not really stand out for me on Seven - if you like it then you should probably listen to 5-7 and not be put off by Fourth.

One can forget what an un-guitar-y band they had been until they address that, er, deficit. This may explain why certain strains of self-identified prog fan are on the wagon for this one?!? (At least the strain who rates stuff on RYM and Progarchives and ranks discographies from best to worst on Youtube lol -- there's a surprising amount of love on the interwebs.)

Fun fact: "Hazard Profile 1" appears to be the most streamed SM track. You earth people are fascinating.

Think Allan Holdsworth has his own fanbase.

Makes sense!

Trying to imagine, like if there were a Neu album from 1979 which had no members of Neu but somehow Joe Satriani was in the band now and everything was built around his nine minute guitar solo, and loads of Joe Satriani fans were playing it on Spotify, like what kind of god would allow this thing to happen?

Hahahahaha!

What if Michael Karoli had quit Can after Out of Reach and they'd enticed Gary Moore into the band instead of him joining Thin Lizzy, and the self-titled album was full of pentatonic blues shredding? Might have been better actually. What if Michael Rother had joined Soft Machine?! You could do this all day.

Holdsworth also played with Gong after Hillage left. The Gazeuse (Expresso in the US) album. His presence was a clear sign that "this isn't really Gong any more."

Softs (1976)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Soft_Machine_Softs.jpg

Allan Holdsworth is out, but John Etheridge is in, doing essentially the same job on guitar only a bit less of a show-off, therefore slightly better? IDK. Also, and I am not making this up, we now have Rick Wakeman's cousin Alan on saxophone. So we start off with a simple duet between these two called Aubade and it is absolutely lovely, one of the most beautiful bits of music they've made for years, even if it is less than two minutes long. Then we have a load of forgettable jams, then on side 2 there's a short instrumental which seems to be entirely synthesised called Second Bundle, it's a nice mid-point between Out-Bloody-Rageous and Soft Space. Then there's "The Camden Tamdem" which aims to be a free jazz freakout but ends up more like a Nigel Tufnell solo. The rest of the LP is all aimless soft jazz noodling, sometimes it sounds pretty or gets into a nice groove, for the most part it's a great big pile of wank.

a good album? nah

All these later album covers are hideously familiar to me from the 1980s-era second-hand racks, seems I made the correct choice in refusing to bite

I bought Fifth, Bundles and Land of Cockayne from charity shops in Shirley when I was a student in Southampton around the year 2000, only ever ended up listening to Fifth.

All the Harvest records are new to me so these are spontaneous observations.
Bundles dismayed me right away by borrowing a guitar riff straight from We'll Talk About It Later by Nucleus - not stolen, obviously, but recycled.
Holdsworth is never that exciting to me, but at least in Bruford and UK he's given a more interesting context to play over - here, too often, his guitar sounds like a garden hose spewing arpeggi and scales. I don't think it's coincidence that all he's called on to play on the two Ratledge pieces are backing riffs - but those two compositions are pretty familiar-sounding and hardly give the impression that Mike was bringing a lot of inspiration to the table.

Jenkins has chosen the cheesiest possible synthesiser sound

Sad to say, Ratledge is credited with all the synth on this record.

at best average library music, at worst naff muzak.

I think Jenkins is attempting to provide variety, some drama, some beauty, and his success is intermittent and modest, probably at his best on the ambient closing track. I'm most touched by the painting on the album cover, which might otherwise have wound up on a Ted Nugent record.

All these later album covers are hideously familiar to me from the 1980s-era second-hand racks

Yes, I remember the dismay of looking for Third and finding Softs.

I do love ‘the floating world’ off bundles

I must be a bad soft machinist because I really like Holdsworth’s shredding on Bundles and especially the opening track. It’s nice to hear him playing with a bit more grit than on his later solo albs.

I'm fine with Hazard Profile Part 1, maybe part 2 (not with parts 3-5) but a name change would have been appropriate at that point.

Speaking of which, shall we do Rubber Riff? Think I have to.

not to jump ahead but i feel like the answer to the thread q is actually SPACED (1996)?

yes ok recorded back in 1969 (for some theatrical hippie happening of the same name) but unreleased and unremembered for a quarter century. no vocals iirc, but tons of drones and tape loops and excellent backwards shit. i came across it floating around in the YSI times 👍🏽

yeah I guess if rubber riff counts then so does spaced. recorded before Third, though, so not really the last one. idk.

just realised i know the bassplayer on other doors (or used to, like 40 years ago: he was technically astounding even as a teenager)

lovely guy even if he worshipped jaco p (acceptable in a teen perhaps)

I still find it amazing that Soft Machine were essentially colonised by Nucleus, in the manner of an ant-eating fungus invading a nest. I can't think of another band where that happened (beyond the early formation period, where this phenomenon is not uncommon I guess). Maybe Renaissance when a bunch of Nashville Teens members joined? But that seemed to be more the founder members getting sick of it and other people taking advantage of the band's profile to keep using the name.

The Buggles colonised Yes for a single album.

I guess Red Krayola and Pere Ubu were almost interchangeable briefly, but yeah, not a very stable thing either IIRC.

see also Henry Cow/Slapp Happy

I gotta admit I am looking forward to the spacier parts of 5/6/7, CDs have not yet arrived

Ok, might as well do

Rubber Riff (Recorded 1976 and released at the time as library music under Karl Jenkins' name, re-released as a Soft Machine LP in 1994)

https://i.imgur.com/maLJpE4.png

What can I say about this? It's pretty standard library music. If you need something on in the background, it's fine, nothing actually bad here. It's the same lineup as Softs so it seems kind of reasonable to retcon it as being a Soft Machine LP, though it still seems like a bit of a scam to have the fans hand over money for this completely forgettable record. I dunno, if they loved Softs then maybe this is something they liked too? People are weird. Best track is "A Little Floating Music" (the names were added in 1994, on the original release there were just descriptions, this one was "Delicate, Rippling, Soft") which seems to just be a Jenkins solo synth piece. "Melina" ("Breezy, Light - Change Of Tempo") and "Travelogue" ("Breezy, Fast") are also quite pretty.

oh, forgot to add

a good album? not sure it even counts as an album, let alone a good one.

Turns out NASA was one of the licensees. Sounds kinda groovy in its natural habitat (eg. the final minute or two here)

https://plus.nasa.gov/video/space-shuttle-a-remarkable-flying-machine/

Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris (1978)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/AliveAndWellParis.jpg

Doesn't appear on official album lists (Wikipedia etc.) as it's a "live" album, but similar to Six it mixes live tracks not available elsewhere with studio recordings (all 8 minutes of Soft Space) so I reckon it absolutely deserves a place here. My expectations were: of course Soft Space is fucking incredible, the live tracks are going to be some more forgettable light jazz noodling, right? well no, it seems not, I actually quite like this. it does take an age to get going, but Puffin' / Huffin' is proper epic jazzy prog stuff and The Nodder would be considered a masterpiece if included on many prog LPs. And of course Soft Space is still fucking incredible, so

a good album = yeah

Soft Heap (1979)

https://i.postimg.cc/rsJFm5x4/R-433478-1385246079-1217.jpg

This isn't exactly a Soft Machine LP, it's by Soft Heap, a spinoff group featuring name: Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, Alan Gowen & Pip Pyle, which (a) means more classic-era members than the actual group have had since 1975 and (b) Soft Machine have broken up at this stage in any case. it's essentially picking up where they left off after Fourth, only without Mike Ratledge's organ sound in there. no real standout moments but it's all pretty good stuff, there are lots of moments that sound like the smoothest free jazz you've ever heard, idk if this is a regular sound around this time but I like it a lot. if I were to pick a single track it would be the opener, Circle Line, and I'm actually writing this from the circle line right now.

a good album = yeah

Echoing the love for Soft Space, some proper Moroder meets Vangelis meets Tangerine Dream business, wish they’d done much more of that sort of thing

Revelation for me this time is that Etheridge is playing that classical-feel acoustic guitar on Soft Space, respect is growing for him daily (and we'll meet him again)

got the box, on "5" now, wow "Drop" is gorgeous

Yeah Fifth is genuinely a great album.

Wyatt's drumming on 4 is exquisite, that's what stood out most for me on that one

Land of Cockayne (1981)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/LandCockayne.jpg

So here we are at the nadir. Karl Jenkins gets an all-star lineup together to work on this album and for some reason decides to call it Soft Machine, though even the Nucleus alumni are getting thin on the ground now and there's not even anything of the spirit of the fusion era here, let alone anything earlier. Allan Holdsworth is back on guitar (though missing on most tracks) as is Alan Parker, Ray Warleigh and Dick Morrissey are in on sax, John Taylor is on electric piano and your actual Jack Bruce(!) is playing bass. And what can all of these talents produce? Uh an album of painfully early 80s vaguely new age smooth jazz muzak. I mean, I can deal with some smooth 80s new age jazz, that could be good maybe, but the production is just so treacly and the tunes just so not there, every track is either a brief sketch or playing the same shit idea over and over again for 5-7 minutes. And the saxophones, jfc, that sound just sets my teeth on edge. There are a few moments - like the very start of "(Black) Velvet Mountain" and the 53-second filler "Behind the Crystal Curtain" - which are briefly OK, but the feeling soon passes. The last track, "A Lot of What You Fancy...", sounds exactly like the original 80s theme to This Morning, and no, I cannot take this thing seriously at all.

a good album = well obviously not.

Thank you for going where others (e.g. me) dare not tread! Will not be investigating past 5, which is the last one I've heard.

I feel zero shame in heartily repping for 'Over n Above' (the opening track on Land of Cockayne), a great balearic disco chugger, same sort of oddball disco ballpark as the stuff that the RAH Band were putting at the time. Fully worth the one pound i paid for it

"Chloe And The Pirates" sounds like something from the "In a similarly Silent Way" thread, good stuff

Yes, nothing wrong with the studio parts of "Six".

I almost like Over N Above but that sickly sweet sax sound just ruins it for me, and it is at least twice as long as it needs to be.

As this is where we finally leave the land of Karl Jenkins, here he is at the coronation of Charles III

https://i.imgur.com/Gwrp0Ky.png

Spaced (Recorded 1969, released 1996)

https://i.imgur.com/Wnu2NYc.png

Here by popular request, some music recorded by one of the classic lineups for a multimedia extravaganza in London, lots of alternate bits & pieces from the first three LPs, actually it's just like a more formless version of one of their live shows around this time, with afew extra tape loops on top. So of course this is great, not sure I can pick anything out though. It was a pleasant background to my work today.

Based on one listen apiece to Softs and the live album, these are passable-to-good prog/fusion/“light instrumental” records. I think Jenkins was more attuned to the pastoral or ambient stuff by this point over the funky fusion bits, which seem more rote than ever. "Soft Space",though, is so derivative of "I Feel Love", even to the point of copying the tonic minor/major chord change, that it actually seems more like library/commercial music to me than the rest of the tracks.
I'm agnostic as to whether these 1975-78 records are "really Soft Machine". Obviously no-one would find them controversial or perhaps even listen to them if they were credited to, say, Isotope or Gilgamesh. But I think the band actually went through more stylistic change between 1968 and 1971 than they ever did afterwards.
Spaced is an interesting listen, but one minute of the opening track sounded better inserted in the middle of "Facelift" than the whole thing does here.

Soft Machine were essentially colonised by Nucleus...I can't think of another band where that happened

Ian Anderson replacing the original Jethro Tull members with his old bandmates, maybe?

Nucleus were pretty ok at the start of the decade. Especially with Ray Russell onboard. So why they needed to go and gradually takeover another band that should really have it's own legacy escapes me.

Did the name Soft Machine have that much more kudos. & was it to a point if surplus so they needed to tarnish that legacy? Kudos surplus like.

Minor observation: not sure I can think of a less appealing record cover than that there Spaced design.

Perversely, I fear I'll not be able to resist digging into the totally unfamiliar ...Cockayne after that thorough dissing.

I am going to give Soft Works - Abracadabra (2004) a listen today.

The cover for Soft Heap upthread has a strong Shark Sandwich vibe.

Soft Works - Abracadabra (2004)

https://i.imgur.com/cxIdPjU.png

So this is Dean & Hopper from the early 70s with Holdworth & Marshall from the late 70s, but without Ratledge or Jenkins at the helm, sounds as you might imagine, many of the more annoying elements are missing, but it's also a bit unadventurous. On the whole though, pretty good. The best thing here is the synth washes, just lovely gentle throbbing sounds, the worst are Holdsworth's guitar solos, just feel like it doesn't fit this sort of gentle ambient jazz at all, not sure what it does fit tbh. So kind of astonished to see that he's also credited for "SynthAxe" and "mixing", maybe I have time for this guy after all, as long as he lays off the guitar a bit. Strongest things here are easily the first couple of tracks - Seven Formerly / First Trane - and the worst is tracks 3/4, Elsewhere / K Licks. It also ends on a guitar solo (titled "Madame Vintage") which for me is the wrong note.

a good album = yeah

I don't yet care about SM after Wyatt, but Bandcamp has a lot, incl prev unreleased live etc sets, or they were on BC last year when I was getting way back into Wyatt.

There is also a lot of live film out there on youtube from 68-71.

Ok, I'm back, listen up. We have a while to go, but this one has made the whole project worth it already.

Soft Mountain - Soft Mountain (recorded 2003, released 2007)

https://i.imgur.com/tAD1csY.png

Elton Dean and Hugh Hopper, on a trip to Japan, with Japanese keyboard player Hoppy Kamiyama and drummer Yoshida Tatsuya, jamming some avant-garde fusion free jazz stuff. Never supposed to be an album, but was put out after Elton Dean's premature death as a tribute. This was really hard to find, just listened to it on Youtube in the end. And holy fucking shit this is so good, it's almost up there with 1/2/3. Hoppy Kamiyama is just endlessly inventive, just keeps coming up with these astonishing shifts, Yoshida Tatsuya (I think he's been in Acid Mothers Temple at some point) is an absolutely incredible drummer, his style is a bit like Brian Chippendale from Lightning Bolt, that perpetual hardness of rhythm carrying on through wild fills, and laying Hugh Hopper's bass and especially Elton's blissful saxophone lines over this, seriously, an hour of improvised free jazz and it was perfect throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AYM47_QG4Y

Yoshida is the main guy from Ruins and Koenji-Hyakkei. Hoppy Kamiyama had a group called Optical*8 who were working in a similar vein to this album. Yeah collaborating with musicians like this was probably a good kick the Brit jazzbos needed!

Actually Hugh Hopper had made records with Kramer of Shimmy-Disc label fame (also Bongwater, Shockabilly etc). Since Ruins put records out on his label too maybe that was the connection?

Not sure if they'll be in the purview of Camaraderie's great run-through here, but I've been having a great time discovering some of these incredible sounding Cuneiform archival live albums.

I'd picked up the more recent ones (Facelift, The Dutch Lesson and Høvikodden 1971), but also gone back to ones I had missed. Both Noisette and Grides are killer, continually amazed by how good they sound.

What are other essential ones?

The two Hux label BBC collections (1967-71 and 1971-74) are well thought of.

The part of my brain with a soft spot for dated soundtracks/etc can vaguely appreciate something like the synthetic-jazz-funk-with-disco-strings (or whatever) of "Panoramania", but yeah, Cockayne feels distinctly non-Soft Machiney. It's almost like Jenkins had some new library cues ready to go but De Wolfe weren't keen this time, so he fell back on the SM moniker as an emergency measure.

It's kinda fascinating. I would totally read a 33 1/3 volume on Cockayne's genesis lol.