Search - Soft Machine :: Man in a Deaf Corner

Overview of a classic underground band

Christopher Forbes | Brooklyn,, NY | 06/04/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fascinating release, documenting the Soft Machine's most creative period. Taken from a variety of sources, including some archival recordings, this double CD chart's the development of this innovative band from it's roots in avant-garde jazz through it's more rock oriented material and finally into the jazz rock fusion that made it's name.The first CD opens with six cuts with various personnel but centering around the core group of Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, the Hopper brothers and Daevid Allen. The music is definately avant-garde, with Brian Hopper's sax reminiscent of Ornette Colman and Ratledge's piano taking Cecil Taylor as a starting point. Rarely have I seen the relationship between the jazz avant-garde and acid rock so well demonstrated. But to my ears, some of the cuts wander a bit too much, without the discipline that an acute ear can hear in the work of Taylor or Coleman.The first CD continues with cuts from the band's classic Volume 2. They feature an amazing sense of form, with far-out jams alternating with crafted pop song sensibility. Ratledge's distorted Lowry organ is out of this world and Wyatt's drumming is a revelation.The second CD concentrates on mostly live material featuring later Soft lineups including Elton Dean and Lyn Dobson on saxes. In these recordings, you hear the band drifting more into the jazz fusion that would make it famous and eventually cripple it. These cuts still have the freshness of the best of the Softs. The arrangements are complex yet inviting and the improvisation is top notch. A couple of caveats, the audio is quite poor on many of these cuts. The jazz pieces sound like they were recorded on an old cassette player with a built in mike. And some of the live stuff suffers from the same problem. Also, don't buy this if you don't like weird stuff. The Softs were definately weird. This is not "peace and love" trippy music. It certainly has it's trippy aspects, but deserves serious listening. Some of the best little known 60's music you can listen to."