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Track Listings
| 1. Pataphysical Introduction, Pt. I |
| 2. A Concise British Alphabet, Pt. 1 |
| 3. Hibou Anemone And Bear |
| 4. A Concise British Alphabet, Pt. II |
| 5. Hulloder |
| 6. Dada Was Here |
| 7. Thank You Pierrot Lunaire |
| 8. Have You Ever Bean Grean? |
| 9. Pataphysical Introduction, Pt. II |
| 10. Out Of Tunes |
| 11. As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still |
| 12. Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening |
| 13. Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging |
| 14. Pig |
| 15. Orange Skin Food |
| 16. A Door Opens And Closes |
| 17. 10: 30 Returns To The Bedroom |
Product Description
Review
By the end of 1968 the Soft Machine had parted company with founder and bass player Kevin Ayers. Ayers, who operated at a more leisurely pace and was less jazz inclined than drummer Robert Wyatt and keyboardist Mike Ratledge, had been put off touring, at least temporarily, by the experience of supporting The Jimi Hendrix Experience acrioss the USA. But following a brief hiatus the band reformed with former road manager and school friend Hugh Hopper on bass. Joined here by brother Brian - another key figure in Canterbury musical history - on sax, it was Hugh's vastly developed sense of melody, combined with the aforementioned love of jazz that saw the band enter Olympic Studios with engineer George Chkiantz and record this masterpiece.
Volume Two's first side begins with Wyatt reciting the alphabet, ending the side's suite of songs by doing the same, backwards. This mixture of the absurd and the serious that was to eventually tip in the direction of the latter (forcing out the more whimsical Wyatt), provides a wonderful tension that no other band has ever really replicated though many have tried (cf: Hatfield And The North). Fearsome chord progressions (Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening), free noise (Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging) and even scatting in Spanish (Dada Was Here): this was no ordinary college band.
Even the infamously po-faced Ratledge was open to a touch of tomfoolery at this point. Pig's exploration of the role of women's underwear in the mating ritual is hilarious, while underpinned with a time signature that they virtually patented in later years. As Long As he Lies Perfectly Still is a truly moving tribute to the departed Ayers: Mike Ratledge's majestic piano chords declaim over his own distorted organ, Wyatt's swinging cymbals and Hugh Hopper's monstrous fuzz bass while Wyatt sings lyrics that are equal parts affectionate, silly and mocking.
Volume Two could be said to be the band's best album. It was a taste of the pre-post modern: relegating lyrics to the role of noise that merely describes what the band's doing (''In his organ solos, he fills 'round the keyboards, knowing he must find the noisiest notes for you to hear'' - Thank You Pierrot Lunaire), or name checking friends of the group (''Thank you Noel and Mitch. Thank you Jim, for our exposure to the crowd. And thank you for this coda Mike, you did us proud'' - Have You Ever Bean Green?). No one makes records like this anymore. --Chris Jones
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CD Description
The roots of Soft Machine lay in the city of Canterbury in Kent and the circle of bohemian friends with Robert Wyatt at their core. Gathering at the large Georgian house owned by Robert’s mother, Honor, Wyatt shared the company of Kevin Ayers, Hugh and Brian Hopper, Mike Ratledge and a drifting Australian beatnik, Daevid Allen spending many hours listening to modern jazz and being exposed to the world of beat poetry and Dadaist art. The second Soft Machine album from September 1969 has now been digitally remastered and sounds better than ever.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Many discerning musicians regard this as one of the greatest albums ever made, but it seems to have flown under the radar of nearly everyone else. It's a controlled explosion of brilliant musical ideas and stream-of-consciousness verbal wit played with a warmth and vitality which leaves you with a big stupid grin on your face.
The first section, 'Rivmic Melodies', Wyatt's extraordinary arrangement of mostly Hugh Hopper's tunes, is an incredible achievement, an unstemmed flow of creativity fizzing and bubbling over and seeping into every nook and cranny. At this point their music could have been called 'Fission', it was only after years of entropy that the group could take on the 'Fusion' label.
The great Hopper's finest song, 'Dedicated to you but you weren't listening' prefigures all those wonderfully awkward Wyatt songs like 'God Song' and 'Muddy Mouth' which have become a tradition as distinctive as anything in music. Mike Ratledge's 'Esther's Nose Job' I find less enthralling, until its climax with '10.30 returns to the bedroom', a blisteringly intense performance which ends with the most thrilling meltdown you'll ever hear.
To me this is a small miracle of music, a crucible of white-hot diverse talents who could only briefly stand to work together but made it seem easy to fuse unlikely sources into a coherent and joyful whole. Lovely.
The first section, 'Rivmic Melodies', Wyatt's extraordinary arrangement of mostly Hugh Hopper's tunes, is an incredible achievement, an unstemmed flow of creativity fizzing and bubbling over and seeping into every nook and cranny. At this point their music could have been called 'Fission', it was only after years of entropy that the group could take on the 'Fusion' label.
The great Hopper's finest song, 'Dedicated to you but you weren't listening' prefigures all those wonderfully awkward Wyatt songs like 'God Song' and 'Muddy Mouth' which have become a tradition as distinctive as anything in music. Mike Ratledge's 'Esther's Nose Job' I find less enthralling, until its climax with '10.30 returns to the bedroom', a blisteringly intense performance which ends with the most thrilling meltdown you'll ever hear.
To me this is a small miracle of music, a crucible of white-hot diverse talents who could only briefly stand to work together but made it seem easy to fuse unlikely sources into a coherent and joyful whole. Lovely.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This album has been at the core of many a record collection for 30-40 years but in UK probably only as part of a double package along with The Soft Machine which is also now available separately. The first Soft Machine album was not given a UK release so once the band took off the 2 albums were tut together. The sound quality on the previous 2on1 CD Soft Machine Vol.1 & 2 is excellent but this is a definite step up plus these two albums are now given the quality of packaging they deserve.
Soft Machine were an amazing band full of intern conflict resulting in an ever changing line-up. Robert Wyatt is still very much at the centre of things on this album and the sense of wonder, exploration and fun runs right through this album. After Kevin Ayers departure following their American tour to promote their debut album Hugh Hopper, who had been one of the many members of the seminal Canterbury group The Wilde Flowers, stepped in to play bass. Hopper had been the bands roadie until then; which other band carries a spare bass player as part of their kit? Hopper brought with him a talent for composition and a leaning towards jazz that would ulimately lead to Robert Wyatt being edged out of the band, which was a source of great hurt to him but also brought the world Matching Mole (a pun on a French translation of Soft Machine. Singling out individual song is a bit meaningless, although some like Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening have been covered but the likes of Keith Tippett on Dedicated to You But You Weren't Listening. This is an album in the post Sgt Pepper mould that required the music to hang together as a single entity (in two halves to allow for turning over the vinyl LP of course) and it is simply a perfect example of the best of that era. It still holds its own today, buy it!
Soft Machine were an amazing band full of intern conflict resulting in an ever changing line-up. Robert Wyatt is still very much at the centre of things on this album and the sense of wonder, exploration and fun runs right through this album. After Kevin Ayers departure following their American tour to promote their debut album Hugh Hopper, who had been one of the many members of the seminal Canterbury group The Wilde Flowers, stepped in to play bass. Hopper had been the bands roadie until then; which other band carries a spare bass player as part of their kit? Hopper brought with him a talent for composition and a leaning towards jazz that would ulimately lead to Robert Wyatt being edged out of the band, which was a source of great hurt to him but also brought the world Matching Mole (a pun on a French translation of Soft Machine. Singling out individual song is a bit meaningless, although some like Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening have been covered but the likes of Keith Tippett on Dedicated to You But You Weren't Listening. This is an album in the post Sgt Pepper mould that required the music to hang together as a single entity (in two halves to allow for turning over the vinyl LP of course) and it is simply a perfect example of the best of that era. It still holds its own today, buy it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
The Soft Machine's 2nd record is every bit as good as the first. It's great British psychedelia with jazz inflections. I thought I would be put off by the jazz element but the album never relents on its psychedelic mission.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Once is far from being enough.
A working definition of why the sixties were so great, part the second.
`The Softs' could have gone and got themselves a hit single after their first album. Read more
`The Softs' could have gone and got themselves a hit single after their first album. Read more
Published 21 months ago by N. Jones
NAKED LUNCHES
WE LISTENED TO THIS LOADS IN THE LATE SIXTIES IT STILL SOUNDS SO GOOD WILL ALWAYS REMAIN IN MY SWEAD , NOT SO OLD HIPPIE LOVE TO ALL WHO CARE , ANON
BTV
BTV
Published on 17 Oct 2009 by Mr. B. Jackson
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