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About Soft Machine
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
Switzerland 1974
by John Kelman
Thank goodness for Cuneiform Records. Beyond releasing cutting edge new music from now-longstanding groups like The Claudia Quintet and relative newcomers like Norway's Pixel, the intrepid American label continues to unearth, restore and release wonderful archival finds like S.O.S.' Looking for the Next One (2013), and the equally impressive Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop-April '69 (2011), from one of the group's reed players, John Surman. Perhaps its most important work on the archival front has, however, been in sourcing live music ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975-1981
by John Kelman
With the release of Bundles (Harvest, 1975), Soft Machine moved more definitively into the riff-based fusion territory that keyboardist/reed man Karl Jenkins had begun pushing the band since his arrival on Six (Sony, 1973). With reeds becoming increasingly less dominant, and the group's only remaining founding member, keyboardist Mike Ratledge, relegated to a backline position, this incarnation--distanced completely from the minimalist-informed, free jazz-centric, but still high volume and rock-edged classic quartet that recorded albums like the seminal Third (Sony, 1970)--truly ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris
by John Kelman
Despite the controversy that plagued the ever-shifting musical persona of Soft Machine during its 15-year run, the benefits of time and hindsight have largely proven the value of every incarnation--albeit best assessed independently, rather than as part of a single continuum. 1978's Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris was the last of a three-record run on Harvest, and saw Soft Machine leave all vestiges of its roots behind, as its last remaining founder, keyboardist Mike Ratledge, finally disappeared entirely, by ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: NDR Jazz Workshop –Hamburg, Germany 1973
by Nic Jones
By May, 1973, Soft Machine was well on its way from being a truly remarkable outfit to being a comparatively anonymous fusion band. This CD and DVD set goes to show this, but at least the music is played with the kind of fire that wasn't apparent on their studio albums of the time. While the rhythm section--bassist Roy Babbington and drummer John Marshall--was a lot more “correct" than its predecessors, the pair does inject a kind ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: Softs
by John Kelman
The last several years have seen the bulk of legendary British group Soft Machine's original recordings reissued: some available after years out-of-print; all receiving sonic upgrades as definitive as they'll likely ever get. Still, Esoteric Recordings' Mark Powell gave all the love he could to Sony's reissue of the group's classic Third (1970), but its marginal improvement only proves the limitations of even the best ears and the most advanced studio technology, when substandard sound is committed to tape, even ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: Land of Cockayne
by John Kelman
Three years after Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris (Harvest, 1978), Britain's Soft Machine suddenly resurfaced momentarily with Land of Cockayne. Given the experimental nature of its glory days and a latter-day fusion masterpiece in Bundles (Esoteric, 1975), it's understandable why Cockayne has historically been considered Soft Machine's dullest moment. But time heals all wounds, and Esoteric's remaster reveals an album stronger than it seemed at a time when it was impossible not to draw comparisons with the Soft Machine ...
Continue ReadingSoft Machine: Bundles
by John Kelman
If the recent discovery of NDR Jazz Workshop (Cuneiform, 2010) demonstrated that the once considered “transitional" 1973 line-up of British psychedelia-cum-electric-avant- jazzers Soft Machine was, indeed, a fine enough standalone unit, then Esoteric's near- concurrent reissue of 1975's Bundles proves that the addition of guitarist Allan Holdsworth lit one serious fire beneath that same group. Back in print and a tremendous improvement over the previous See for Miles CD, it's a chance to revisit an album that fired an important ...
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