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(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
Now this is one weird and influential band to come out of the late 1960's. As part of the British Canterbury jazz/progressive Rock scene of the time, this band consisted of a bunch of eccentrics who were interested in making music of an experimental and unconventional nature. They started off as a sort of psychedelic pop band much like Pink Floyd (though from what I've heard a bit more odd and off-kilter than them), but by the time of their first album, they were quickly moving away from pop and into the sounds of the avant-garde, and specifically, Jazz. In the long run, this made their special brand of music a heck of a lot more inaccessible and odd when compared to mainstream progressive and jazz-rock bands. But no matter, the intelligent and talented lads they were, this made their music all the more fascinating to listen too as well. And no more fascinating does their music get than on this appropriately-titled Volume 1, the first and arguably best of their nearly dozen studio releases.
What's so unique about this record, first and foremost, is that this trio of band-members, who were all classically-trained in the past and have a vast knowledge of musical structure, make up a sound that's both sparse and edgy, but vibrant and colorful at the same time. There's at least one virtuoso in the band by the name of Robert Wyatt, who as the jazzy-styled drummer, is always playing in an inventive, exciting, and lively way, contributing all sorts of complex drum patterns. Also the lead vocalist of the band, his soft-spoken, dissonant-sounding, and off-key vocals are definitely an acquired taste (I think they are great though), but they somehow work perfectly in the scheme of things. Next, complimenting Wyatt's drumming to a tee, is keyboardist Michael Ratledge with his stunningly frantic, erratic, and completely crazy organ playing.
To hear these two forces at work, look no further than on the lengthy seven minute-plus jam called "So Boot If At All" - some of it is just incredible and off-the-wall! Last but not least then is guitarist Kevin Ayres (this is the only full-length Soft Machine album he appears on - he pursued an equally weird solo career after this), who must actually be the bass-player, because I don't really hear any noticeable guitar on this album. In fact, the whole album sounds like it's just made up of bass, drums, and keyboards (along with some surreal avant-garde sound-scapes). Surely, not much bad about that.
The first tune on here, "Hope For Happiness", surely brings all the magical qualities of the band-members to the fore. It starts off with an echoey clang of drums, before the dissonant, yet awkwardly melodic vocals of Wyatt slowly come in to propel the song into a wildly swinging rhythm that rocks and rolls due to the frenetic keyboard playing that goes all over the place and the energetic drums. The highlight of course is the ridiculously great jam in the middle of this chilly and heavily jazzy tune. Flowing right into the foaming "Joy Of A Toy", a calm and relaxing instrumental that contains some great effects from the bass and organ, the three-part suite ends with the reprise of "Hope For Happiness", which has a weird wonderful ending of noodly keyboards and phased drums. Following that is an album highlight with "Why Am I So Short?", a tune that is only one-and-a-half minute long, but which contains a top-notch melody, swinging jazz-type drumming that really bops it along, and a magnificent vocal job.
If that isn't enough, it all leads into the major jam of the album, the previously-mentioned "So Boot If At All". While it's hardly perfect through-out, the first half of it does have some of the most driving and crazy keyboard/drum/bass jamming you'll ever hear - it has a great vibe to it too, sounding like it was played in one big empty room. Very excellent. The rest is just decent avant-garde sounds with yet again more sparkling drum-soloing. Finally we have the just-nice "A Certain Kind" to close off the first half as a preachy church-organ number with decent back-ground vocals. More vibrant is the excellent three-part suite that comes right afterwards though, opening up side two with a bang. And it really does open up with a thick, fat bang! Beginning with distorted and creepy organ effects, the suite-starter "Save Yourself" is a complexly-played pop tune that has an excellent R n' B edge in its' chorus, dark-undertones through-out, and a twisted ending that contains some groovy fuzz-bass.
After those two-and-a-half minutes have ended it leads into the one-minute groove of "Priscilla", before going into the melodic "Lullabye Letter", where distorted bubbly vocals during the verses, electronic and static keyboard jamming, and forceful playing turn it into one of the best tracks on here. The mind-numbing repetitiveness of "We Did It Again" spoils the album a bit towards the end (though if you are patient with it, it's in reality not too bad) but the moody and even more musically-twisted "Why Are We Sleeping?" comes back as another album-saver. This ground-breaking release from Soft Machine may be hard to get into, but once you do it's very worth it - a high 8 for this one. Hmm... I didn't think this band of eccentrics were going to get a review as long as this one. Ah.. maybe they deserve more recognition anyway.
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(reviewed by Casey Brennan)
The first of many line-up changes to occur during Soft Machine's career happened here when Kevin Ayres (lead guitarist - but you wouldn't know it) left and was replaced by bass/alto player Hugh Hopper. They may have been basically going from just one bass-player to another, but Hugh's presence sure affects Volume 2 like no other. His low-key, fuzzy bass-guitar is very very high in the mix through-out and almost always at the forefront of the sound, seemingly overpowering and plaguing the entire record. Making the album sound dense and murky (much in contrast to the vibrant sparseness of Volume 1), it can also be the most annoying feature of the album as well on first listen. The first thing that came to my mind at least was that the bass was too annoyingly loud and that the whole record sounded rather poorly-produced.
But hey, after a few listens I found that the bass-work, more often than not, gives Volume 2 a special earthly, underground charm. Apart from this pronounced bass-sound I've been talking about, the band is incorporating saxophones and such into their sound here, and is clearly moving into a much more jazzier and instrumental-based direction. Within a framework of seventeen tracks (half of them being two minutes and under), the band weaves itself through avant-garde jazz-wankers, complex pop melodies (all courtesy of Wyatt's odd vocals), noisy experimental interludes, a bit of self-indulgent and experimental keyboard soloing, and pure jazz-rock shuffles. As you can see, It's one bizarre and diverse trip through a shady and overgrown garden.
Not as bizarre as what the tracks are actually named though: I wonder what made them come up with such odd tune-names as "Hibou Anemone And Bear" (I'm guessing the first two words are someone's name, but who knows or cares) or even "Hullo Der". Believe me, when you look at the track listing you'll laugh, or at least shake your head. Anyway, in going back to the music, the question is if it actually works or not. Thanks to the crazy amount of ideas, it does more often than not. The first ten connected bunch of tracks, which opens and closes with the heavily-saturated melody of "Pataphysical Introduction - Part 1" and "Part 2" respectively (with "Out Of Tunes" as an afterthought), is where the best stretch of music can be found.
Right after the one-minute introduction that opens it up, we get to hear the band sing the A,B,C's frontwards and backwards(groovy eh!) in "A Concise British Alphabet" (parts 1 & 2), while "Hibou Anemone and Bear" sits in-between as a mostly-instrumental piece with obscure keyboard noodling and honking saxes. The band then goes into a few snippets of beautiful melodies in the "Hullo Der" to "Have You Ever Bean Green?" slot, which are all punctuated by gloomy piano, high-pitched buzzing bass, and beyond-weird lyrics and vocals. My favorite part easily. Finally it all ends with an all-out-jazzy noise-fest called "Out Of Tunes" (it's messy psychedelia but it's intriguing in spots).
Following that are, strangely enough, two complete songs. "As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still" has a wonderful off-kilter melody with a low earthly atmosphere, while "As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still" is an acoustic ballad that ain't too conventional in structure to say the least (and far from catchy). It's the last song with much vocals as well, before the last four song-suite "Pig/Orange Skin Suite/A Door Opens and Closes/10:30 Returns to the Bedroom" comes in and takes over. While some of it bores me a tad (the two middle jazzy tracks mostly), the main repetitive piano melody is haunting, "Pig" boasts a complicated time signature and some great jazzy drumming, and the whole thing is pretty involving. It's no amazing wonder that this band decided to move even farther away from their early 'mad-cap' sound and onto the free-form jazz epics of Third, an album that's so hard to get into that I can't even review it yet.
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