soft machine's SPACED: query then bid for blab

query: if anyone on this beyotch can make a copy of SPACED liner notes (hooper's and Woolford's) and send them to me that wd get you into heaven

reason: last-minute fact-checking detail left un-nailed-down in huge big piece abt something else

also let's talk abt spaced, the best soft machine LP

(ps I am now sorted for the sleevenotes bcz contrary to widespread opinion facebook and twitter are full of lovely ppl)

I love Soft Machine but am somehow not familiar with this album

Images of the sleeve notes here:

https://www.discogs.com/release/11303038-Spaced/images

discos is the only good website

Also the best potato snack

erotic niknak emoji

fun record. wouldn't say it's their best necessarily - haven't listened to it in a while, guess it's as good an opportunity as any for me to give it a spin again. a lot in there that's reminiscent of the intro to facelift and in general the bits of third i shaved off to make a very fine 1-lp jazz-rock record. i do think that the jazz-rock bits of "third" are genuinely first-rate. the "spaced" style bits are first rate as well, but the members of the group never really explored those sounds again within the confines of the soft machine, though in one way or another they all did touch on these areas outside the group (ratledge on say, "riddles of the sphinx", wyatt on the second side of the first matching mole LP, hopper most extensively)

it's something i have to be in a certain mood for, and i'm not in that mood terribly often, admittedly. maybe i'll make a day of it and give hopper's "1984" and the second side of the matching mole record a re-listen.

Also the best potato snack

― Rishi don’t lose my voucher (wins)

oh are we talking disco fries, i love talking about disco fries

love Spaced but that's quite the challops

Hold on, Damon Albarn's dad managed Soft Machine?

Also, a bit of a derail - though wider atmosphere context setting maybe - but Spaced wasn't the only multimedia event at the Roundhouse in 1969! A while back I was reading about Moonrock in an interview with Jonathan Park, who created the stage sets for Pink Floyd:

REG:

In 1969 you began your association with Moonrock at London's Roundhouse, which was described as a radical children's workshop. What was it all about?

Jonathan:

Well, it was created by a man called John Gravelle, whose now been gone for ten or twelve years. He was a very political activist, and he wanted a stage to work on. And he organized a... it was very political what he called an alternative to the organized ghetto of children's entertainment, i.e.. getting away from middle class quiet values to, you know, liberate the creative juices! It was noisy, anarchic... but it was fun and it was fresh. And it involved stories, films, painting, acting, face painting, drumming and Rock and Roll.

REG:

What I read about it was that Moonrock was composed of many forms of art and mixed media, including painting, theater, film, and music, as well as inflatables. All the components it seems that are used in modern stage and concert production today. Is this where it all came together for you, as far as where you could see the future; mixing art with architecture, design, and engineering?

Jonathan:

The curious thing is that it was entirely what I was interested in doing, but I never looked upon it as being a future direction. And when I actually worked in rock and roll for the first time, I actually did not make the connection between what I was doing then, and what I had developed with Moonrock. Moonrock for me was an extraordinary development period, because it allowed me to be very artistic, if you want, and creative, working with my then wife Cheryll, and John Gravelle and the people around him. We created this three ring circus of activity which ranged from The Roundhouse to doing street demonstrations and so on. We were all incredibly creative and influential, because the things we did at Moonrock later became very influential in terms of what is now done with children's workshops and community activities. And of course working in The Roundhouse at that time, was a most fantastic place to be. It was the center of alternative culture in London. And the US Hog Farmers would drop in there, Pink Floyd played there, The Doors played there, and there were fantastic theatrical performances there... The Living Theater, the Ballet Rambert, The Grand Magic Circus, Hamlet featuring Marianne Faithful Mick used to call in for her Rock and Jazz concerts of every description. And then there was the Dialectics of Liberation that took place there... over a week long period. There were absolutely extraordinary people talking about the alternative world politics, liberation, psychology and new forms of action... very very political, with Stokely Carmichael, R D Laing, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Marcuse, Julian Beck etc... there was just about every voice and poet homed in on the Roundhouse for this explosion of underground culture.

Wow, I knew about some Roundhouse activities, but not about Moonrock, thanks.
From springtime revive of Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?, wherein I listen to and post about all the Wyatt streaming for free on bandcamp:
xxxpost, speaking of crackling, just now I thought a tree was starting to fall across the driveway---windy as hell out there today---but then it sounded like Wyatt doing something with sticks---also right up by my ears (I'm wearing 'phones): just some of the fun with stereo on "Spaced One," from a bunch of manipulated instrumentals used for a multi-media show:
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spaced
...recorded in early/mid 1969 by the "classic" Soft Machine trio line-up of Hugh Hopper [bass], Mike Ratledge [electric piano/organ] and Robert Wyatt [drums]..These recordings feature the band at their most radical, and while they would never again use the studio in such an extreme fashion, the work done here definitely influenced later works such as Third and Hugh's 1984.
That opener is by far the longest, and other than little sticks and pokes, mostly organ drone with less bass bobbing. "Spaced Two" starts like a para-proto-Can-Velvets groove: just a little keyboard ripple with kickdrum and closed high-hat maybe, oh it's a loop, and here's another, 'bout to drip from the ceiling, but layers quickly accrue, with maybe realtime variants, or more illusions (Eno says the mind seeks out variety in sameness), then, almost 5 minutes in, several things go backwards, some of them creating an anxious, courteous,persistent pitch, an old butler, drumstick slicing way behind him---nice, one for the Beatles fans.
(Spaced Three: carousel melting backwards in Sgt. Pepper Park, but don't hear Wyatt so fuck it--except points for being shortest track.)
Spaced Six: Awright! Keys, bass, full drum kit wheeling around, greeted by glitch riffs---RW providing solos/bursts as accompaniment to/as negative space and vice versa (accompaniment to/as himself? Might as well). Chopping blocks and going Latin for a second, tapes abused and done. This is the RWrelevant keeper for relatively rational cherrypicking, but I might possibly buy the whole thing (DAMMIT)

― dow, Wednesday, May 6, 2020 6:10 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

some soft machine ephemera using the spaced material: beyond image from the people responsible for their light show at that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEImTZ05gZw
[search on youtube: ' beyond image (mark boyle/joan hills) '' - light show - 1969.]

― no lime tangier, Wednesday, May 6, 2020

it's been so long since i've heard spaced that i'm not sure if any of that soundtrack material^^^ is actually on the album in some form or another? or maybe the only physical release it got was this: https://www.popsike.com/SOFT-MACHINE-Bob-Woolford-Sound-WYATTHOPPERRATLEDGE/150639108761.html

(also: see ninth photo down for soft machine at work in the dockland rehearsal space mentioned in hopper's reminiscence in the liners linked above)

Interesting historical ephemera surrounds this album...

I'm curious about mark s's "huge big piece abt something else"

the crass version is it's abt terry riley's tape pieces and their legacy in countercultural music (not gnna say influence bcz we all know what's wrong with that word)

Strong and streaming, mate.

Re xpost physical Cuneiform's bandcamp page for the release, which I linked above(several freebie streams still there), says that these are "previously unreleased studio recordings," and that page offers their digital, though they also did CD, via storefront: http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Soft-Machine-Spaced__Rune-spc-90.aspx, which I'm trying not to buy. Didn't check for vinyl.

Yall see recent thread , w stuff from this one and some more, although no lime's exc vid removed at least from where he linked it from I guess but maybe still around elsewhere? Well didja? soft machine's SPACED: query then bid for blab

Mark S says it's their best music.

bummer about the disappeared video, seems to have vanished completely. anyway, it's available as an extra on this which is where i first came across it.