Label: Moonjune Records (US), MJR023
Style: Jazz Rock, Contemporary Jazz
Country: England
Time: 62:10
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 388 Mb
For
Soft Machine fans, Drop may well be the Holy Grail of live recordings
from a legendary British group that began in psychedelia, ended in
riff-based fusion, and traversed considerable stylistic territory in
between. A four-month tenure might be nothing more than a footnote to
some, but Phil Howard contributes to one of the group's greatest
triumphs-electric, ear-shattering free improvisation of more reckless
abandon than anything before, or after, the Australian drummer's brief
stay.
Soft Machine's greatest strength came from a dynamic and often
inflammatory tension, the result of the collision and concurrence of
vastly differing personal musical goals. This combination created a
fertile testing ground-and a classic period documented on three studio
albums from Third (Sony/BMG, 1970) through Fifth (Sony/BMG, 1972)-that
positions Soft Machine alongside innovative fusion work by post-Bitches
Brew Miles Davis and early Weather Report.
Keyboardist Mike Ratledge
may have written some of the group's most complex compositions, but he
was an equally powerful improviser, as the incendiary solos on his
mid-tempo "Slightly All the Time" and higher velocity title track
demonstrate. Bassist Hugh Hopper was also interested in
composition-albeit of a more oblique nature-but here he proves capable
of both anchoring this liberated incarnation and responding to Howard's
rhythmic maelstrom on Dean's "Neo Caliban Grides" and Ratledge's
melodically episodic "Pigling Bland." Dean's free improv proclivities
were already well-known-surfacing more vividly on the sessions for his
debut, Just Us (Cuneiform, 1972)-but he was still a melodist at heart,
as focused in construction as he was visceral in intensity. His fiery
saxello solo on "Slightly All the Time" is, quite simply, one of his
best on record.
Howard was already playing with Dean in early 1971
(he can also be heard on Just Us), and his unrestrained and
unconstrained approach-resembling Tony Williams' fierceness but more
unfettered in its view of time-created a perfect foil. When founding
member Robert Wyatt left Soft Machine in August 1971, Dean suggested
Howard as the ideal replacement. Howard may not have ultimately proven
ideal-driving the band so far away from form was simply too much for
Ratledge and Hopper at the time, resulting in the drummer's termination
mid-way through the Fifth sessions-but more than lighting a fire, Howard
dropped a nuclear bomb on the group, pushing it to some of its greatest
and most transcendent extremes.
Soft Machine's live performances
were always continuous; here it finds new ways to segue from one tune to
the next in an hour-long set of unrelenting creativity. Howard's
turbulence blurs some of the arrangements as he pushes his way through
some of the more challenging constructs rather than playing with them,
but he possesses a pulse all his own-his own kind of swing.
Any
doubts that Soft Machine was on equal footing with its American
counterparts of the time can finally be put to rest once and for all
with the spontaneous combustion of Drop. Too late for 2008 "best of"
lists, it's the first clear entry for best historical release of 2009.
(allaboutjazz.com/drop-soft-machine-moonjune-records-review-by-john-kelman)
01. Neo Caliban Grides (06:23)
02. All White (06:14)
03. Slightly All The Time (13:16)
04. Drop (07:40)
05. M.C. (03:24)
06. Out-Bloody-Rageous (11:30)
07. As If (06:09)
08. Dark Swing (01:54)
09. Intropigling (00:52)
10. Pigling Bland (04:44)
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