Search - Soft Machine :: Bundles

Jaw-dropping, stunning, ridiculously artful, subtle, etc.

rhizome@pacbell.net | Sebastopol, CA United States | 09/26/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was turned on to this album, and in it heard my first Allan Holdsworth (guitar), at the tender age of 16 or 17, and life hasn't been the same since. I just ordered it and listened to it for the first time in about 20 years, with the clarity a CD affords, and I can see it's going to screw me up again!There are no adequate words to describe the guitar solos on this album, especially in "Hazard Profile Part 1". This is a young Holdsworth recorded at the point of a major breakthrough in his virtuosity. He is like a machine (a "soft" machine??), relentlessly spewing impossibly long and fluid strings of legato 32nd notes. It's positively mindbending if you are a serious listener of music. If you're a musician, especially a guitarist, it's nothing short of devastating.As for the rest of the musicians on this album, they're brilliant too. The drum work is stellar; the keyboards are at turns subtle and psychedelic; the bass is transcendently transparent; and the horns speak like the songs of a possessed shaman. "Bundles" is an entire package that flows from beginning to end, like an aural movie. The fact that this came out in 1975 is in itself devastating because it reveals just how banal and un-challenging music has become today in comparison. The jazz-rock fusion of the 70s represented a pinnacle of unabashed creativity that hasn't been touched since and I'm very afraid will likely never be seen again. "Bundles" captures a golden moment in this most special era of music. Now I have to go listen to it again and cry some more..."

Simply The Next Best Recording for the Softs!

Carl Johnson | Detroit, MI United States | 01/14/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, it is true that many elitist Soft Machine fans might shun this record because the dearly loved Robert Wyatt is not on it. Well, that is a shame. This is Mike R's (keyboards)last studio outing with the band... and he is as superb with his style of playing in a subtle, less pronounced way. Mike has grown up a lot! He approaches the fuzz box with a familiar reverence however, he has learned how to lay back some and let other intramentalist show themselves as well. The record clearly showcases various members of the entire band. It flows beautifully from Hazard Profile to the end peice, which is a showcase peice for percussion. This sounds like, and makes me remember 1975 for the intellegent expressiveness of music in the world of jazz-fusion and prog rock. I still find it captures the energy and calm of the mid-seventies very well. On the same token, it does NOT sound stuck in the seventies either!
It's not Grand Funk Railroad folks, it is the metamorphisized Soft Machine! This record, at the time of it's release, is most noticed for bringing Allan Holdsworth to the attention of the Prog Rock and ultimately the jazz world. It does that very well, but don't forget just what the Soft Machine was either! It's a great spin!"

New sound for the Softs makes this album worth a listen

rhizome@pacbell.net | 06/13/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mike Ratledge's last album with the Softs found the band on a new label and adding guitar to their jazz-rock sound. In a nutshell, the guitar, provided by Allan Holdsworth works, and makes this one of the best fusion pieces of the mid 1970s. Worth a listen (especially by Softs fans who refuse to listen to anything the group made after Robert Wyatt left)."