Daevid Allen (Gong, Soft Machine) - Banana Moon (1971)

Year: July 1971 (CD 1995)
Label: Spalax Music (France), 14945
Style: Progressive Rock, Garage Rock
Country: Melbourne, Australia (13 January 1938 - 13 March 2015)
Time: 38:32
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 258 Mb

When he's eventually popped his clogs (for the man turns 76 in a few days from now), Daevid Allen may only ever be remembered for his long-running input into arguably one of the most influential bands of the psychedelic rock genre, Gong. However, long before such a band existed the man was running around the world, meeting up with musical poets, disgruntling government authorities due to his visa running out and generally cooking up some of the most otherworldly stories known to man (and it's not just the pot-head pixies I'm referring to either). After having had the time of his life producing the strangest music of the late 60s under the Soft Machine and Gong banners, Allen decided to go on a more personal venture into the world of music, thus creating his first solo album, Bananamoon.
Bananamoon is a completely different kettle of fish to Allen's work with Gong and Soft Machine, though still very much drug-addled and otherworldly all the same. For his debut solo album, Allen still used numerous musicians as he did with his previous two bands on various songs. Therefore, what we have in Bananamoon is not just one musician's input, but a rather large handful of musicians all contributing their respective talents to each and every song. As a result, every song here is different in its own way, though there are times when a song can lose itself amidst psychedelic music.
(full version: sputnikmusic.com/review/60482/Daevid-Allen-Bananamoon/) Review by Robert Davis. January 10th, 2014

01. Time Of Your Life (03:27)
02. Memories (03:37)
03. All I Want Is Out Of Here (04:51)
04. Fred The Fish (02:31)
05. White Neck Blooze (05:50)
06. Stones Innocent Frankenstein (03:22)
07. & His Adventures In The Land Of Flip (12:03)
08. I Am A Bowl (02:47)

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Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine) - Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975)

Year: May 1975 (CD 1998)
Label: Hannibal Records (France), HNCD 1427
Style: Jazz Rock, Avant-garde, Progressive Rock
Country: Lydden, Kent, England (28 January 1945)
Time: 39:11
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 220 Mb

The follow-up to Rock Bottom, for which Wyatt had written all of the music and lyrics, Ruth... consisted of Wyatt's adaptations and arrangements of other people's music (either friends – Phil Manzanera, Fred Frith, Mongezi Feza, former Wilde Flowers bandmate Brian Hopper – or influences – Charlie Haden) with Wyatt adding his own lyrics in much the same way as he had done on Matching Mole's Little Red Record. Apart from "Sonia", recorded for the shelved "Yesterday Man" single in October 1974 (again with Nick Mason as producer), the entire album was recorded and mixed at Virgin's The Manor Studio with Wyatt himself handling production duties. Much of the album features Wyatt (on lead vocals and keyboards) backed by a "band" consisting of bassist Bill MacCormick, drummer Laurie Allan and saxophonists George Khan and Gary Windo, with Brian Eno adding his own idiosyncratic "anti-jazz" touch.
Two years earlier Wyatt had provided the hypnotic soundtrack to the experimental film Solar Flares by Arthur Johns. The nine-minute film, "a personal essay on colour effects", had been produced by Nick Mason and recorded at his home studio. Wyatt had been involved at an early stage and his music was central to the project. The music itself would reappear on his 1975 album "in a more 'digestible' form".
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Is_Stranger_Than_Richard)

01. Muddy Mouse (a) (00:49)
02. Solar Flares (05:36)
03. Muddy Mouse (b) (00:50)
04. 5 Black Notes and 1 White Note (05:00)
05. Muddy Mouse (c) (06:15)
06. Soup Song (04:03)
07. Sonia (04:18)
08. Team Spirit (08:33)
09. Song for Che (03:42)

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Soft Machine - Seven (1973)

Year: October 1973 (CD 2007)
Label: Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Europe), 82876872922
Style: Jazz Rock, Progressive Rock, Canterbury Scene
Country: Canterbury, England
Time: 43:15
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 263 Mb

This was the first Soft Machine album I bought and nearly the last. Not that it isn’t soothing in a sleepy sort of way, but it wasn’t at all the madcap sonic adventure I was expecting. With time, of course, I understood that the original quest changed after the departures of Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt, with Mike Ratledge leading the band into jazzier terrain much as Gong did under the stewardship of Pierre Moerlen. From the perspective of Six, little had changed—or needed to, really. The mesmerizing keyboard patterns, mutated saxophone/oboe solos, superlative drumming and steady bass shift every few minutes like an audio kaleidoscope, which is pleasant enough. It’s generally a calmer and more peaceful record than most jazz fusion albums from the period, and there’s little difference between the songs written by Ratledge and Karl Jenkins, giving Seven a consistent feel from beginning to end. Is it the first Soft Machine album you need to own? In my experience, obviously not (they did number these for a reason). If you’re going to buy seven Soft Machine albums, however, here you are. Highlights (to my ears) include Tarabos, Down the Road and the combination of Snodland and Penny Hitch (the songs tend to merge into one another). Carol Ann is also very pretty. That said, the album doesn’t really have standout sections; it’s conceived as an organic whole that flows from the shared musical sensibilities of its four members. It’s not their best album, but it might be their softest so far.
(progrography.com/soft-machine/review-soft-machine-seven-1973/)

01. Nettle Bed (04:51)
02. Carol Ann (03:45)
03. Day's Eye (05:03)
04. Bone Fire (00:35)
05. Tarabos (04:27)
06. D.I.S. (03:04)
07. Snodland (01:51)
08. Penny Hitch (06:38)
09. Block (04:18)
10. Down The Road (05:44)
11. The German Lesson (01:51)
12. The French Lesson (01:03)

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Robert Wyatt (ex Soft Machine) - The End Of An Ear (1970)

Year: 4 December 1970 (CD 1999)
Label: Columbia Records (Austria), 493342 2
Style: Free Jazz, Avant-garde
Country: Lydden, Kent, England (28 January 1945)
Time: 47:01
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 258 Mb

In the glorious machine-powered future, we can look forward to AI-created music conceived “in the style of Robert Wyatt” and nod approvingly as a jumble of drums, horns and piano come tumbling from our computer speakers. In the drug-fueled past, of course, we had to make due with the electrical connections contained in our own craniums. Metal or soft machine is splitting hairs, you may say, and I (with none of my own to split) might argue otherwise, but we are the true author of neither. Music like this exists because it must, because the rules of chaos dictate that even clouds will occasionally take the perfect form of a cat, and that even whacked-out moles like Robert Wyatt will discover genius in chaos (or that chaos will discover the genius in Robert Wyatt).
The End of an Ear begins and ends with Wyatt’s bizarre interpretation of Gil Evans’ Las Vegas Tango. Wyatt largely replaces the horns with gibberish, creating a strange tapestry of sound that comes surprisingly close to the original while at the same time seeming nothing like it. The remaining “songs” feature the same instrumentation—drums, horns, keyboards, bass, voice—that take Wyatt’s dadaism to new heights (depths?). Frank Zappa made music like this, only he made it on purpose. Wyatt is less rigid, though perhaps no less intentional. Sometimes, The End of an Ear sounds like music. To Saintly Bridget is alien space jazz. To Carla Marsha and Caroline is simultaneously melodic and oddly disquieting. To Caravan and Brother Jim starts out relatively normal before becoming enveloped in cryptic cacophony. I’m not sure what Columbia thought they had signed on for with this album, but that they didn’t sign up for a sequel probably says a lot. Wyatt’s first solo album has all the earmarks of a contract breaker. More likely, he was letting off steam as Soft Machine devolved into a “normal” jazz fusion band (the quotes implying normal relative to the strange world of Soft Machine). If you’re into Zappa’s stranger experiments or just enjoy listening to a Dadaist drummer thumb his nose at the world for forty minutes, The End of an Ear could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. It’s not for everyone, and possibly not for anyone (despite its dedications), but in a world where art can now be condensed into a set of algorithms, it’s refreshing to hear someone making music while breaking so many rules.
(progrography.com/robert-wyatt/review-robert-wyatt-the-end-of-an-ear-1971/)

01. Las Vegas Tango Part One (Repeat) (08:13)
02. To Mark Everywhere (02:26)
03. To Saintly Bridget (02:21)
04. To oz Alien Daevyd And Gilly (02:09)
05. To Nick Everyone (09:12)
06. To Caravan And Brother Jim (05:20)
07. To The Old World (Thank You For The Use of Your Body, Goodbye) (03:17)
08. To Carla, Marsha And Caroline (For Making Everything Beautifuller) (02:47)
09. Las Vegas Tango Part 1 (11:13)

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Soft Machine - Fourth & Fifth (1971 & 1972)

Year: 1971 / 1972 (CD 1999)
Label: Columbia Records (Europe), 493341 2
Style: Jazz Rock, Progressive Rock, Canterbury Scene
Country: Canterbury, England
Time: 75:50
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 510 Mb

The subtle electro-acoustic blend of Fourth has an understated coolness in which their augmented horn section is harnessed to a thoughtful score. Deployed to incisive effect on the angular “Teeth” (written by keyboardist Mike Ratledge), it’s equal to anything from Third. The four-part “Virtually” introduces muted sinuous layers of cascading lines over Hugh Hopper’s sepulchral fuzz bass; proto-ambient jazz-rock, anyone?
Bleak and ambiguous, Fifth is a game of two halves thanks largely to the use of two diametrically-opposed drummers - evidence of the creative crisis of these now post-Wyatt times. The shifting squalls of Phil Howard’s cymbals says free jazz as favoured by sax player Elton Dean, whilst John Marshall’s crisp precision pulls it nearer Hopper and Ratledge’s camp.
(bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/dw8c/)

Fourth (1971):
01. Teeth (09:13)
02. Kings and Queens (05:01)
03. Fletcher's Blemish (04:36)
04. Virtuality Part 1 (05:15)
05. Virtuality Part 2 (07:05)
06. Virtuality Part 3 (04:37)
07. Virtuality Part 4 (03:23)
Fifth (1972):
08. All White (06:07)
09. Drop (07:42)
10. M C (04:55)
11. As If (08:23)
12. LBO (01:31)
13. Pigling Bland (04:21)
14. Bone (03:35)

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Soft Machine - Noisette [Live] (1970)

Year: 4 January 1970 (CD January 18, 2000)
Label: Cuneiform Records (US), rune 130
Style: Jazz Rock, Progressive Rock, Canterbury Scene
Country: Canterbury, England
Time: 73:25
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 444 Mb

Recorded January 4, 1970 at Fairfield Hall, Croydon, England, this was the first show performed by the short lived 1970 quintet version of the band and is taken from the same concert as “Facelift” on Third.
Noisette features the rest of the concert, & showcases a band in transition from their earlier psychedelic/ progressive sound towards the jazz rock sound of Third & Fourth. It features the quintet performing versions of material from their 1st two albums as well as material not available on their studio albums.
Mastered directly off of the 50 year old 15ips master tapes, this release boasts superb live sound for the time period, & includes rare, unseen photos and liner notes by Aymeric Leroy.
(cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/noisette)
Steve Feigenbaum (founder of Cuneiform Records) continues to expand the breadth of the Soft Machine legacy by finding gold in long forgotten tapes. His latest audio treasure spotlights a brief five-piece incarnation of the band upon completion of a mainland European tour. Lyn Dobson is the uncomfortable melodic element in this transitional line-up which is only documented here in these ten songs. The set opens with a spirited rendition of Mike Ratledge’s “Eamonn Andrews,” which was previously only found on the BBC archives disc. Drummer Robert Wyatt is under some restraint in this performance when compared to his drumming on Cuneiform’s last release, Virtually. His only real chance to break out vocally is on the segued version of “Moon in June” as the piece shifts into Hugh Hopper’s piece “12/8” which appears here for the first time. Then Dobson appears to take the soprano sax lead as Elton Dean provides the accompanying alto sax part (as they also do on “Hibou, Anemone and Bear”). The surprise piece in the almost 75 minute set is the rave up on “We Did It Again” from the band’s first album. The piece opens with a Wyatt drum solo and quickly builds into a brash jam which servers as a strong closer for a show. What’s Rattlin’s Aymeric Leroy timelines the detailed events which led up to this live performance at Croydon Fairfield Hall in January, 1970. This recording serves as another living testament to the jazz genius of the ensemble as they anxiously await discovery by a new set of eager jazz acolytes. Noisette should hold up easily as the archive release of the New Year.
(expose.org/index.php/articles/display/soft-machine-noisette-4.html) Review by Jeff Melton, 2000-05-01

01. Eamonn Andrews (12:15)
02. Mousetrap (05:24)
03. Noisette (00:37)
04. Backwards (04:47)
05. Mousetrap (reprise) (00:25)
06. Hibou, Anemone and Bear (09:21)
07. Moon In June (06:55)
08. 12/8 Theme (11:24)
09. Esther's Nose Job (14:59)
10. We Did It Again (07:14)

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Soft Machine - Switzerland 1974 [Live] (1974)

Year: 4 July 1974 (CD Feb 6, 2015)
Label: Cuneiform Records (US), Rune 395/396
Style: Jazz Rock, Progressive Rock, Canterbury Scene
Country: Canterbury, England
Time: 59:49
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 366 Mb

You have to be an extremely confident unit-and one mother of a band-to turn up at a prestigious mega-gig like the Montreux Jazz Festival and drop a set of new material on the audience like the newly rejiggered Soft Machine did in July 1974. Turns out that material would go on to comprise 1975’s Bundles, a fusion juggernaut, but hey, props where props are due. And there should be no shortage of them with this set, as newly acquired guitarist Allan Holdsworth works himself in the Machine fold with the most well stocked of sonic quivers.
His riffs come from all directions, and opener “Hazard Profile” is a veritable Encyclopedia Britannica of fusion technique. Hammer-ons marry up with staccato fuzz, which eddies out into needle-like lines of extreme dexterity and delicacy. Enviable stuff in and of itself, but integrated into the band’s churning rhythmic approach-like they’re trying to outpace Bitches Brew-we have one mighty, thudding beast to contend with. A lot of that beast’s ferocity, as it were, comes courtesy of John Marshall’s kit work, as on the clattering “Land of the Bag Snake,” the titular creature being made to sound like it is thumping its way down electric stairs.
“The Man Who Waved at Trains” shows just how well the group could turn ferocity into finesse, with Mike Ratledge’s keyboard work trading in funky blues and Chick Corea-type shimmerings, and Holdsworth’s guitar taking on the aspect of a plucked violin. “Riff II” is the great growler here, some chunky bombast that explodes into a climatic rave-up punctuated by an impossibly long drum roll. There’s a touch of Floyd, too, in “The Floating World,” which has the same kind of cosmic whimsy, and the reprise of “The Man Who Waved at Trains” even features implied sound effects: a guitar mimicking springs snapping and hammers hitting on the gears of clocks.
This is wild, oft-loud, preternatural Pied Piper-type music, with Karl Jenkins’ soprano sax on the concluding “Penny Hitch” all but taking your hand and pulling you down into the record. Holdsworth’s solo is pure gossamer atop the groove, with the clean inflections of Smokin’ at the Half Note-era Wes Montgomery. The crowd clearly gets that something beyond even standard top-gig fare has gone down, and everyone, at the end, loses it. Quite the banner achievement for this group-cum-collective Piper, and for this resulting beckoner of a live package.
(jazztimes.com/reviews/albums/soft-machine-switzerland-1974)

01. Hazard Profile (16:46)
02. Floating World (05:15)
03. Ealing Comedy (04:14)
04. Bundles (03:09)
05. Land of the Bag Snake (04:27)
06. Joint (02:20)
07. The Man Who Waved At Trains (03:01)
08. Peff (04:28)
09. The Man Who Waved At Trains (reprise) (00:21)
10. Lbo (04:45)
11. Riff II (03:08)
12. Lefty (collective improvisation) (02:07)
13. Penny Hitch (coda) (05:42)

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Soft Machine Legacy (Soft Machine) - Burden Of Proof (2013)

Year: 18 March 2013 (CD 2013)
Label: Esoteric Antenna (UK), EANTCD 1015
Style: Progressive Rock, Contemporary Jazz
Country: England
Time: 55:14
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 356 Mb

Burden of Proof is the sixth album by the Canterbury associated band Soft Machine Legacy and their third studio album, released on CD in March 2013. This was the last album to use the "Legacy" suffix before it was dropped in 2015. Soft Machine returned with Hidden Details in 2018 featuring the same line-up that recorded this album.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_Proof_(Soft_Machine_Legacy_album))
All hail to these vets of jazz and prog rock, we can only salute you. The most obvious expression of all things Softs here is the elegiac re-visioning of Hugh Hopper's ‘Kings & Queens’, replete with a yearning Etheridge solo and Travis' signature echo-rich flute. But this illustrious foursome can draw on legacies beyond the Canterbury scene: ominous Mahavishnu chords lurk beneath ‘Black and Crimson’, the Crims pop up on a familiar riff on ‘Fallout’, and there's a dash of Etheridge's Zappatistas on the lumbering but ecstatic ‘Pump Room’. Marshall and Travis' clattering ‘The Brief’ looks back to Bodywork, their collection of free improvisations and Etheridge even has an overpowering attack of Jimmy Page-itis on the ‘Dazed and Confused’-edged ‘Green Cubes’. But let's not look back: whether it's on a dirty blues like ‘Pie Chart’ or the ambient ambling of ‘They Landed On A Hill’, Legacy remain a band who dish it up hot and fresh today, and hopefully tomorrow.
(jazzwise.com/review/soft-machine-legacy-burden-of-proof)

01. Burden Of Proof (05:51)
02. Voyage Beyond Seven (04:53)
03. Kitto (01:50)
04. Pie Chart (05:07)
05. Jsp (01:03)
06. Kings And Queens (06:46)
07. Fallout (06:59)
08. Going Somewhere Canorous? (01:13)
09. Black And Crimson (05:05)
10. The Brief (02:27)
11. Pump Room (05:19)
12. Green Cubes (05:33)
13. They Landed On A Hill (03:03)

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Robert Wyatt (ex Soft Machine) - Rock Bottom (1974)

Year: 26 July 1974 (CD 1989)
Label: Virgin Records (UK), CDV 2017, 0777 7 87712 2 7
Style: Art Rock, Canterbury Scene, Progressive Rock
Country: Lydden, Kent, England (28 January 1945)
Time: 39:34
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 210 Mb

Rock Bottom is the second solo album by English musician Robert Wyatt. It was released on 26 July 1974 by Virgin Records. The album was produced by Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason, and was recorded following a 1973 accident which left Wyatt a paraplegic. He enlisted musicians including Ivor Cutler, Hugh Hopper, Richard Sinclair, Laurie Allan, Mike Oldfield and Fred Frith in the recording.
The band Matching Mole disbanded soon after the release of Little Red Record in 1972, and Wyatt began composing the material that later appeared on Rock Bottom. The album's preparation was interrupted by an accident on the night of 1 June 1973. During a raucous party, at Vale Court, Hall Road, Maida Vale in London, an inebriated Wyatt fell from a fourth-floor bathroom window and was paralysed from the waist down. Wyatt has used a wheelchair ever since. He later called the event the beginning of his maturity and in hospital he continued to work on the songs that would appear on Rock Bottom "in a trance". "I was just relieved that I could do something from a wheelchair," he said. "If anything, being a paraplegic helped me with the music because being in hospital left me free to dream, and to really think through the music."
Within six months he was back at work in the recording studio and appeared on stage at London's Rainbow Theatre with Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, who lent financial support by playing a benefit concert for him. Although the music itself is intense and often harrowing, and the lyrics to the songs are dense and obviously deeply personal, Wyatt has denied that the material was a direct result of the accident and the long period of recuperation. Indeed, much of the album had been written while in Venice in early 1973 prior to Wyatt's accident, where his partner and future wife (the poet Alfreda Benge) was working as an assistant editor on Nicolas Roeg's film Don't Look Now.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Bottom_(album))

Album recorded and mixed in the analog domain - AAD. That is, a minimum of digital processing.
A=Analog. D=digital. The first letter stands for how the music was recorded. The second letter for how it was mixed. The third letter stands for the format (all CD's will have D as the last letter).

01. Sea Song (06:31)
02. A Last Straw (05:46)
03. Little Red Riding Hood Hit the Road (07:40)
04. Alifib (06:55)
05. Alife (06:31)
06. Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road (06:08)

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Soft Machine - Live In Paris May 2nd, 1972 [2CD] (1972)

Year: 1995 (CD May 4, 2004)
Label: Cuneiform Records (US), Rune 195/196
Style: Jazz Rock, Progressive Rock, Canterbury Scene
Country: Canterbury, England
Time: 47:05, 58:00
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 311, 361 Mb

Recorded at Paris's Olympia theatre (as part of a one week festival including Magma, Grateful Dead, East Of Eden and The (Morrison-less) Doors, this is yet another very interesting live recording the incredible Cuneiform labels pulls from the cardboards. One of the shortest SM incarnations (that had only managed to record half of 5 album prior to the release of theses tapes, as Phil Howard had been ejected (he was pulling the Machine into a full improv band, much to Ratledge and Hopper's dislike) and John Marshall (originally sensed to be at the drum stool but not available when Wyatt had left) was brought in, but Dean was to leave soon, peeved at Howard's firing. All of the material is from Third and 5 and strangely nothing from 4, maybe as an anti-Howard reaction from the two masters on board. But ultimately Dean's departure (due to the sacking of Howard) will provoke a series of changes where a bunch of Nucleus members will fill the shoes of departing members and changing the jazz-rock Machine into a full fusion butterfly of Bundles and Softs albums. But for this particular release, three of the four tracks from third are present on that night's set-list, but there are tracks that are nowhere to be seen on studio records or even on their official historical releases of that era. Again the sound quality of this Cuneiform is extraordinarily good especially considering Elton Dean was plagued with bad mikes, but it does not affect the sound. Worthy of note, Dean was also playing electric piano that night (this was not usual as far as I know) and his replacement, Karl Jenkins, will also double on Kbs and reeds.
Maybe not essential unless you are a total SM fan, this record is once again the proof that the Machine was a well-oiled one capable of mesmerising concerts.
(progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3257) Review by  Sean Trane. October 12, 2005

01. Plain Tiffs (03:30)
02. All White (06:23)
03. Slightly All The Time (13:07)
04. Drop (07:42)
05. M.C. (02:59)
06. Out-Bloody-Rageous (13:22)

01. Facelift (17:50)
02. And Sevens (08:54)
03. As If (08:27)
04. Lbo (06:07)
05. Pigling Bland (06:04)
06. At Sixes (10:34)

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