I first listened to this band in the late 80s. I’d heard that they were the ‘other band’ (apart from Pink Floyd) who opened the UFO Club in January 1967. It was fairly safe to assume, therefore, that I could expect psychedelia.
That wasn’t what their first album exactly delivered, though I can’t say I disliked it. I remember being not particularly sold on Mike Ratledge’s keyboards and the absence of (what I understood as)’lead guitar’ was disappointing. I didn’t investigate further and when I learned that their subsequent albums steered further into the territory of ‘fusion’ or even just plain ‘jazz’, I made a mental note not to bother with them.
However, tastes change and in 1997, I picked up their Third album. I struggled with it quite a bit (Facelift is one of those ‘confrontational’ opening tracks that pitches the listener right into the centre of things) but eventually I came to appreciate it (or, at least, some of it). I retained it in my collection and listened to other things until, in the mid-2000s, when CDs became cheap as chips, I decided it was time to investigate further. I picked up the rest of their Columbia catalogue, as well as the second album - and NOW, I was ready to listen. These albums rapidly became among my most-listened to of the first decade of the 21st century.
I’m aware that a majority of ‘Softheads’ seem to think that the band declined after Robert Wyatt left/wa made to leave and that the arrival of Karl Jenkins (possibly the most controversial British musician of the last forty years) began a precipitous decline in the band’s fortunes that led to them producing (what many would describe as) ‘slightly more interesting than average elevator music’. Others feel that the decision to include guitarists in the line-up (two pretty amazing ones, it must be said) turned the band into a bland fusion outfit (Fusion being a genre that still doesn’t command universal respect - indeed, respect for it seems to have declined in the last forty years).
Personally, I enjoy all eras of the band, but I suppose I have to give the nod to 1970-72. And I’m glad Wyatt left because otherwise we wouldn’t have had his incredible solo career.
A couple of years ago, I picked up a four-disc set of live Soft Machine from 1970-71: superb performances, some of them including the short-tenured ‘free form’ drummer Phil Howard (who seems to have vanished from the face of the earth).
Thoughts on Soft Machine?
That wasn’t what their first album exactly delivered, though I can’t say I disliked it. I remember being not particularly sold on Mike Ratledge’s keyboards and the absence of (what I understood as)’lead guitar’ was disappointing. I didn’t investigate further and when I learned that their subsequent albums steered further into the territory of ‘fusion’ or even just plain ‘jazz’, I made a mental note not to bother with them.
However, tastes change and in 1997, I picked up their Third album. I struggled with it quite a bit (Facelift is one of those ‘confrontational’ opening tracks that pitches the listener right into the centre of things) but eventually I came to appreciate it (or, at least, some of it). I retained it in my collection and listened to other things until, in the mid-2000s, when CDs became cheap as chips, I decided it was time to investigate further. I picked up the rest of their Columbia catalogue, as well as the second album - and NOW, I was ready to listen. These albums rapidly became among my most-listened to of the first decade of the 21st century.
I’m aware that a majority of ‘Softheads’ seem to think that the band declined after Robert Wyatt left/wa made to leave and that the arrival of Karl Jenkins (possibly the most controversial British musician of the last forty years) began a precipitous decline in the band’s fortunes that led to them producing (what many would describe as) ‘slightly more interesting than average elevator music’. Others feel that the decision to include guitarists in the line-up (two pretty amazing ones, it must be said) turned the band into a bland fusion outfit (Fusion being a genre that still doesn’t command universal respect - indeed, respect for it seems to have declined in the last forty years).
Personally, I enjoy all eras of the band, but I suppose I have to give the nod to 1970-72. And I’m glad Wyatt left because otherwise we wouldn’t have had his incredible solo career.
A couple of years ago, I picked up a four-disc set of live Soft Machine from 1970-71: superb performances, some of them including the short-tenured ‘free form’ drummer Phil Howard (who seems to have vanished from the face of the earth).
Thoughts on Soft Machine?
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