Soft Machine

Few English bands from the mid-60's had the mystique of the original Soft Machine. Several have acquired it in retrospect - the Soft Machine actually had it (albeit uninternationally) at the time. They may have lost it in time (through musical self indulgence) but there is no denying their place in the cultural history of 'those days'.

The Soft machine formed in 1966 but their story starts several years earlier at the Simon Langton School in Canterbury, whose pupils at the time included Robert Wyatt, Mike Retledge and Hugh Hopper - all of varying ages, but sharing a common interest in jazz. Much has been made, over the years, of the idyllic and liberal atmosphere of the school and its influence on a Canterbury supposedly on the brink of turning into a kind of English Haight-Ashbury. But Robert Wyatt has since dispelled the myth by saying: 'It was an extremely dull grammar school and I can't remember a single stimulating thing about Canterbury.'

Around this time Wyatt and Hopper met a genial Australian by the name of Daevid Allen. Aged 21, Allen was a fully fledged beatnik - he knew and had worked with William Burroughs and the then unknown Terry Riley in Paris; He had taken LSD and had long hair. With Hopper playing bass and Wyatt learning the drums, the three of them performed occasionally as an avant-garde trio but spent much time in Paris, on Allen's houseboat, working on tape-loops with all manner of new delights.

By 1964, with the Beatles and the Stones sweeping all before them, Canterbury was developing its own healthy music scene. At the center was a group called the Wilde Flowers, the initial line-up of which comprised Hugh Hopper, his brother Brian on saxes, Robert Wyatt, Richard Sinclair on guitar and Kevin Ayers - who had been recommended because he was the only other long-hair in Kent - on vocals. The Wilde Flowers played a strange mixture of R&B, soul and experimental jazz. The band continued in various incarnations until mid 1966, when Allen and Ayers took off to Majorca for the summer.On their return they discovered that Ratledge - a brilliant keyboard player, heavily into contemporary classical music - had left Oxford University and wanted to form a new band. One half went on to become Caravan in 1968. Ayers, Wyatt and Allen joined up with Ratledge and eventually became the Soft Machine. The name was Allen's idea, coming from the title of a William Burroughs novel; He actually phoned Burroughs for permission to use it.

Initially the new band's repertoire wasn't vastly different from that of the Wilde Flowers, but they soon became totally original, performing Ayers' and Wyatt's own compositions. Ayers' were prototypes for the quirky but oddly philosophical songs for which he later became known; Wyatt was already writing about the minutiae of his daily life, both were singing, in their different ways, in very English accents, providing that it was possible to sing in a rock band without affecting a mid-Atlantic drawl. Apart from the songs, they were developing an interest in improvisation, largely through Ratledge. By the end of 1966 their music was, in both style and execution, way beyond most of their British contemporaries.

The timing was perfect - through Allen and his connections with the international freak set, the band were able to find gigs in the newly-emerging underground. They played on the same bill as Pink Floyd at the International Times launch party in October 1966 and went on to become regulars at UFO. For these early gigs they were supplemented by an American guitarist, Larry Nolan, a mysterious character who was, apparently, the veteran of various Californian bluegrass bands alongside David Lindley.

Like many of the more adventurous bands of the period, the Soft Machine suffered from audience incomprehension and hostility almost every time they played out of London or at a non-underground gig. As a result, shortly after their memorable performance at 'The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream' at the Alexander Palace in April 1967, they shifted their base of operations to the South of France, their popularity in Europe dates from this period. On their return at the end of the summer, Allen was refused entry as an undesirable alien, the band continuing as a three-piece. How ever, they have already recorded a single, the classic 'Love Makes Sweet Music', on which Allen played.

In April 1967, shortly after the release of the single, the band entered De Lane Rea studios in Soho to cut the tracks that became known as the 'Jet Propelled Photographs' album. Opinions differ as to the purpose of the sessions. Certainly they were demos, but Giorgio Gomelsky (who paid for the recording and subsequently held on to the tapes) claims they were to be the basis of a proper album. Wyatt remembers it differently, claiming that they were more in the nature of publishers demos and that the majority weren't being seriously considered as material for the band to perform on stage. Indeed several were written by Hugh Hopper, who although still a friend, wasn't actually in the band.

So what about the actual music. To be fair no one could suggest that it's the best stuff the band ever recorded and over the years the album has been subjected to an awful lot of criticism, much of it valid. The production qualities are minimal, some of the playing is sloppy (especially Allen's guitar-playing, which only if one was being very king could be called 'atonal') and overall conveys little or non of the magic and power of the band could generate at the UFO. In its favour the album has enthusiasm, not a little excitement, some great songs and now and again, snatches of something very special. Daevid Allen once remarked that he was eternally embarrassed by his performance but that the whole thing was redeemed by Wyatt, whose vocals and drumming Allen described as 'magnificent'. Which is probably true. The tapes, of course, vanished for years but although an album based on them never materialised, most survived in one form or another.

At the end of the year the Soft Machine embarked on a gruelling six-months tour of the States with Jimi Hendrix and after this they recorded their first album, Soft Machine. Although everything was completed in one take, it was a stunning album, containing charmingly silly Wyatt songs and slightly more disarming numbers by Ayers, linked by pieces of improvisation. Despite its quality, it remained unreleased in the UK until the mid Seventies. The tour virtually killed off the band. however; Ayers disappeared, but Ratledge and Wyatt recruited Hugh Hopper, who had roadied for them, to play bass - and a new band came together in July 1968 to rehearse for a second album.

Ratledge had felt that the original band was too 'poppy'; although adventurous and bizarre, the new line-up was to be considerably more serious. Nevertheless, the two 'aspects' co-existed for a while, as is demonstrated by the second album, 'Volume Two' (1969). Despite more technical problems, it was another classic album, this time with the added dimension of Hopper's roaring fuzz bass. By the end of the year, the limitations of the three-piece led to the addition of a four-piece brass front-line. On a good night they were amazing, but the sheer originality of the first line-up had virtually disappeared; they were moving towards a jazz-rock norm. Unable to sustain such a large unit, they dropped back to a four-piece, only Elton Dean on alto sax remaining from the big band. This line-up produced 'Third' (1970), in many ways their most polished album - though, with the exception of Wyatt's "Moon In June', most of the humour and what the French saw as 'Dadaist' qualities had gone.

Shortly after the release of 'Third', the band played at the Promenade Concerts, much to the chagrin of the dinner-jacketed audience. It wasn't a good gig, but it was significant in that it showed that the band have become the 'intellectuals' of the rock set and were taken up by the establishment. Ratledge, in particular, was starting to concentrate more and more on 'technical expertise'. Wyatt's contributions, especially the vocals, were being cut back virtually to nothing. He left the band, returning briefly to drum on 'Fourth' (1971), a rather flaccid version of 'Third'.

With Wyatt gone, the charm of the original band had disappeared completely. Even new recruit Elton Dean left; an improviser by choice, he found little room to move in Ratledge' increasingly tight compositions. the next line-up, with John Marshall on drums and Karl Jenkins on saxes, recorded 'Fifth' (1972) and 'Six' (1973), both cold jazz-rock albums.
By May 1973 Hopper had left and been replaced by another jazz-rocker, Roy Babbington. At This point Ratledge should seriously have considered dropping the name Soft Machine but, undaunted, the band went on to make 'Seven' (1973) and 'Bundles' (1975). Even the addition of a guitarist, Allan Holdsworth, had made little difference to the sound. Ratledge himself quit in January 1976, but Jenkins and Marshall held on to the name and, with various additional musicians, made the albums 'Softs' (1976), 'Alive And Well In Paris' (1978) and, after a gap when everyone thought that the name had gone for good, "Land Of Cockayne' (1981).

For music of the Seventies, the band bearing the name Soft Machine bore little relation to the original.aspects of the original ideas lived in the work of ex-members, notably in Gong, the anarchic - if self indulgent - band led by Daevid Allen.

Throughout the late Sixties and early Seventies, Kevin Ayers tottered on the brink of success with a string of solo albums, but seemed happier sunning himself in Majorca. Wyatt formed Matching Mole, a sort of radical version of Soft Machine. Following an accident in which he fell from a window, causing him to be paralysed from the waist down, he was unable to drum any more, but such releases as 'Rock Bottom' (1974) and a series of singles on the Rough Trade label in the Eighties have shown that his distinctive vocal style, once so important in the Soft Machine, remained unimpaired. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Personnel:
Hugh Hopper.
Mike Ratlidge.
Robert Wyatt

@ The Ninth National Jazz and Blues Festival. - 8th August 1969
The Softs were a bit unlucky , as they bore the brunt of the technical problems on the opening night . Power failures led to much of this set being dogged with problems. Just how long they performed for is debatable. However, an audience tape exists of 10 minutes of their set and If I can find it I'll review it .

Soft Machine were a fairly inpenetrable band, you either loved them or loathed them .Originally the Softs featured the well known 60s rock eccentrics Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers, but they left fairly early on in the piece . I used to like them quite a bit and I saw them once at the Top Rank in Swansea in either late 1969 or early 1970. Now I fnd their music a bit mechanical, but they had great chops and were masters of the extended prog rock number. Their third album, titled, strangely enough - Third , is a very good example of this and is generally considered the best of their efforts. After this they became progressively more jazz orientated, Wyatt left soon after and after a few years none of the orgiinal members were left in the line-up.This show would be in their middle period, where Wyatt took the vocals. Most of their set would have been instrumental with Wyatt ( who has a very strange, but somehow lovely voice) occasionally chiming in with brief vocal interludes. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Wiki
The Soft Machine was a pioneering English psychedelic, progressive rock and jazz fusion band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene.

Beginnings and the "classic quartet"
The Soft Machine was formed in 1966 by Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar) and Mike Ratledge (keyboards). Allen, Wyatt and future bassist Hugh Hopper had played in the Daevid Allen Trio, occasionally accompanied by Ratledge. Wyatt, Ayers and Hopper had played in a band called the Wilde Flowers, which included future members of another Canterbury band, Caravan.

This first Soft Machine line-up became involved in the early UK underground, featuring prominently at the UFO Club, and recorded the group's first single, as well as some demo sessions that were released several years later. They also played in Holland, Germany and on the French Riviera. In 1967, upon their return from a performance in France, Allen (an Australian) was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom, so the group continued as a trio.

In early 1968, eventual The Police guitarist Andy Summers joined the group, but left shortly after. Later in 1968 they toured the USA, opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. During this tour, they recorded their first album, The Soft Machine, in New York. Disbanded after Ayers's amicable departure at the end of this tour, Soft Machine reformed with former road manager and composer Hugh Hopper on bass added to Wyatt and Ratledge, to record their second album in 1969.

From the odd psychedelic rock style of the early period, featuring Ayers and/or Wyatt singing on most of their pieces, Volume Two, with Brian Hopper playing saxophones, launched a transition towards a purely instrumental sound resembling what would be later called jazz fusion. Notwithstanding the disconcerting personnel changes that came about during this period, this is a fascinating period of creative tension. The base trio was late in 1969 expanded to a septet with the addition of four horn players, though only saxophonist Elton Dean remained beyond a few months, the resulting so-called classic Soft Machine quartet (Wyatt, Hopper, Ratledge and Dean) running through Third (1970) and Fourth (1971), with various guests, mostly jazz players (Lyn Dobson, Nick Evans, Marc Charig, Jimmy Hastings, Rab Spall, Roy Babbington). Fourth was the first of their fully instrumental albums.

All members of the classic lineup were highly literate in various musical backgrounds, but foremost was the eclectic genius of Ratledge, who through composition, arrangements and improvisational skills propelled a collective output of the highest standard, in which the vocal charm and extraordinarily original drumming of Wyatt, the lyricism of some of Dean's solos and the unusual avantgarde pop angle of Hopper's pieces all had a major role. Their propensity for building extended suites from regular sized compositions, both live and in the studio (already in the Ayers suite in their first album), reaches its maximum in the 1970 album Third, unusual for its time in each of the four sides featuring one suite. Third was also unusual for remaining in print for more than ten years in the United States, and is the best-selling Soft Machine recording.

The post-Wyatt era
After differences over the group's musical direction, Wyatt left (or was fired from) the band in 1971 and formed Matching Mole (a pun on machine molle, the French for soft machine). He was briefly replaced by Australian drummer Phil Howard, but further musical disagreements led to Howard's dismissal after the 1971 recording of the first LP side of Five (1972) and, some months later, to Dean's departure. They were replaced respectively by John Marshall (drums) and, for the recording of Six (1973), Karl Jenkins (reeds, keyboards), both former members of Ian Carr's Nucleus, and The Softs' sound developed even more towards jazz fusion.

In 1973, after Six, Hopper left and was replaced by Roy Babbington, who had already contributed with double bass on Fourth and Five and took up electric bass successfully. This new quartet of Babbington, Jenkins, Marshall and Ratledge recorded the next (and last) three official Soft Machine studio releases. After they released Seven (1973) without additional musicians, the band switched record labels from Columbia to Harvest. On their 1975 album Bundles, a significant musical change occurred with fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth adding guitar as a very prominent melody instrument to the band's sound, sometimes reminiscent of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, setting the album apart from previous Soft Machine releases, which had not featured guitars. On the last official studio album Softs (1976), he was replaced by John Etheridge. After Softs, Ratledge, the last remaining original member of the band, was also gone. Other musicians in the band during the later period were bassist Steve Cook [5], saxophonist Alan Wakeman, and violinist Ric Sanders. Their 1978 performances and record (titled Alive and Well, ironically) were the last for Soft Machine as a working band. The Soft Machine name was used for the 1981 record Land of Cockayne (with Jack Bruce and, again, Allan Holdsworth, plus Dick Morrissey on tenor sax), and for a few live shows in 1984, but these featured Jenkins and Marshall with groups assembled just for those performances.

The Soft Machine legacy
Since 1988, a wealth of live recordings of Soft Machine have been issued on CD, with recording quality ranging from excellent to poor.

In 2002 four former Soft Machine members - Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Marshall and Allan Holdsworth - toured and recorded under the name Soft Works. In 2005, with John Etheridge replacing Holdsworth, they toured and recorded as Soft Machine Legacy, three albums of theirs have been released: Live in Zaandam (2005), the studio album Soft Machine Legacy (2006) and Live at the New Morning (2006). On their tour in summer 2006, Theo Travis (formerly of Gong and The Tangent) replaced Elton Dean, who died in February 2006. Both of these groups performed some pieces from the original Soft Machine repertoire as well as newer material....... =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Calyc Club
Soft Machine was formed in 1966 by Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen. Wyatt had already worked with Allen in the Daevid Allen Trio (which Ratledge occasionally jammed with) in 1963, and with Ayers in the Wilde Flowers in 1964. Although the band had its roots in Canterbury, it soon became a London-based band.

In January 1967, the band's one and only single ever was recorded : it had two songs on it, "Loves Make Sweet Music" and "Feelin', Reelin', Squeelin'". Three months later, a collections of demos was recorded at DeLane Lea Studios with producer Giorgio Gomelsky, but not officially released until 1971 (on two compilations on the French Byg label). At that time, Soft Machine had already become something of a 'cult' band on the London psychedelic scene, gigging at places like the Roundhouse or the UFO. On April 29th, 1967, they took part in an event set up by the underground paper 'International Times', which also featured the Pink Floyd, and was given the name, '14 Hour Technicolor Dream'.

During the summer, the band was involved in an avant-garde theatre project in St.Tropez, on the French Riviera, and it was on the way back that Daevid Allen was refused re-entry to England. So he stayed in France, moving on to various projects before forming Gong two years later, while Wyatt, Ratledge and Ayers decided to carry on as a trio.

In February 1968, Soft Machine embarked on a 3-month US tour (opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience), recording their first album in New York in four days in April, with production handled by Tom Wilson and Chas Chandler, former Animals bassist and Hendrix's producer. Although quickly made (most tracks are first takes) and not particularly well-recorded, "The Soft Machine" is now considered a classic of the extraordinarily creative post-psychedelic, pre-progressive, period of the late 60's... and quite rightly so!

In May, a guitarist by the name of Andy Summers (also on the earlier Hendrix US tour, backing Eric Burdon... later in The Police, of course!) joined, for the second leg of the American tour (July-September), but left mid-tour. Disagreements on the musical direction began to arise between Ayers and Wyatt-Ratledge, leading to their parting company after the tour was completed. Wyatt stayed in Hollywood to work with Jimi Hendrix, while Ratledge and Ayers flew back to Europe. In December 1968, Wyatt was contacted by Probe, who had just released the first album, to discuss possible live dates by the band to promote it. With Ayers unavailable, Hugh Hopper was asked to join (he was about to sell his bass!), and after a month of rehearsal, the new line-up made its live debut at the Royal Albert Hall in February, a few days before entering Olympic Studios to record the second album.

For "Volume Two" and most of the subsequent gigs, the trio was augmented by Hugh's brother, Brian, who played tenor saxophone. This was the symptom of the band's gradual evolution towards jazz, clearly apparent on the album. In the Autumn of 1969, a permanent brass section was recruited from pianist Keith Tippett's jazz band : Elton Dean on alto sax, Marc Charig on trumpet, Nick Evans on trombone. Another sax (and flute) player, Lyn Dobson, was added following Dean's recommendation. The resulting septet was only together for a few weeks, recording BBC sessions in November and touring France quite extensively towards the end of the year; Evans and Charig then left to pursue successful careers on the European jazz scene (although they guested on subsequent albums).

During the first months of 1970, Soft Machine recorded "Third", a double album which included four sidelong compositions. Hugh Hopper's angular "Facelift" was a collage of live performances made in January, and is the only track featuring Lyn Dobson, who had left by the time the studio sessions for the other four sides had begun. Mike Ratledge contributed two sides : "Slightly All The Time", a progressive jazz masterpiece made all the more successful by the inclusion of the "Backwards" theme (bookended by Hopper's transition theme "Noisette") from previous live medleys; and "Out-Bloody-Rageous", which showcased the band's use of tape loops and featured strong group interplay. Finally, "Moon In June", Robert Wyatt's side, was something of a farewell to Soft Machine's original style, the last piece by the band ever to feature vocals; it was actually a montage of several old songs, some of them dating back to the 1967 Gomelsky sessions, but superbly linked together (Wyatt had recorded a demo of the suite in the USA in 1968). A good indication that the rest of the band weren't too keen on pursuing that kind of direction was that, although uncredited as such, "Moon In June" was largely a solo performance by Wyatt, who played organ and keyboard bass as well as drums and vocals. Hopper and Ratledge only appeared for a brief instrumental extravaganza at the end of the main part; Wyatt didn't even ask them to play on the rest.

So by mid-1970, Soft Machine had become a purely instrumental band; Wyatt being the only member wanting vocals in the music, the majority won... During the summer, Wyatt recorded his first solo album, "The End Of An Ear", on the sleeve of which he described himself as an 'out-of-work pop singer'... But a collection on pop songs the album was not : no lyrics, no conventional singing, rather a very experimental collection of mainly improvised material (the titles of the tracks referred to several Canterbury figures : "To Caravan And Brother Jim" etc.) except for a cover of Gil Evans' "Las Vegas Tango", with the voice used as an instrument and heavily treated, mostly through tape speed alterations. The results were, depending on one's taste, unlistenable or startlingly original and unique.

In the autumn, following a controversial appearance at the Royal Albert Hall for the famous 'Promenade Concerts' in August, the 'classic' line-up of Wyatt , Hopper, Ratledge and Dean recorded "4", in fact their first and last studio album as a quartet, although this incarnation would more or less survive for one more year. This effort carried on in the vein of "Third"'s instrumental tracks (with a welcome return to the septet format on the extraordinary "Teeth" and "Virtually"), and in this respect was an impressive achievement, although the complete lack of vocals made some listeners wonder if the band could still go on under the name Soft Machine... If only they'd known how many changes of personnel and musical direction were still ahead of them!!!

1971 was a year of experimentation, as one can tell from listening to the radio sessions recorded on this period. Several musicians (various brass players, string-bassist Roy Babbington and drummer Phil Howard) were sometimes added to the basic quartet, furthering the evolution towards jazz. That same year, Elton Dean released his first solo album, in much the same vein, with his own Elton Dean Band musicians (Howard and bassist Neville Whitehead), and Ratledge among the guests.

When Wyatt finally left in July, later forming Matching Mole, Phil Howard was a natural choice as replacement, but he rapidly left, midway through the sessions of the "5" album - his style was considered too 'free' by Hopper and Ratledge... and a good majority of the audiences who had seen the band play that autumn. He was in turn replaced by John Marshall, one of the very best drummers in Britain, formerly of Nucleus among other bands. With Marshall in, Soft Machine rapidly moved away from the straighter jazz feel of "5", into more 'jazz-rock' territory, which apparently wasn't to the taste of Elton Dean, who left in May 1972. He subsequently worked with mainly acoustic jazz ensembles, although he was also (quite surprisingly) involved in the Dutch 'progressive rock' band Supersister in 1973-74.

Ex-Nucleus pianist/reeds player Karl Jenkins wasn't really a replacement for Dean, as his multiple talents, including that of composer, rapidly made him the co-leader of Soft Machine with Ratledge. With the impressive Hopper/Marshall rhythm section at their disposal, the pair could allow themselves any level of complexity and musical variety. "Six Album", released in early 1973, was a double half-studio, half-live set. The latter showcases the interplay between the four musicians, while the former is more experimental, focussing on Jenkins and Ratledge's dual keyboard patterns and the use of Echoplex, most notably on the hypnotic "The Soft Weed Factor".

In May 1973, Hugh Hopper decided that four years in Soft Machine was enough and that it was time to move on to pastures new. He had just released his first solo album, "1984", and went on to release several others, and work with countless jazz and progressive bands throughout the decade, and again from the mid-eighties onwards after he stopped playing for five years. Roy Babbington, who had guested on a couple of Soft albums a double-bass player, was a natural replacement, except for the fact that he now concentrated on his 6-string bass guitar. The resulting line-up recorded "7", a natural progression from the studio album of "Six Album", with shorter compositions and even less jazz influence.

Perhaps sensing that, for the first time in the band's existence, Soft Machine's music tended to repeat itself, it was decided to add guitarist Allan Holdsworth to the line-up in December 1973. The resulting quintet (which toured North America in early 1974) was a fusion powerhouse, with possibly the best British drummer and guitarist at that time. Consequently, the music took a decidedly 'rocky' character, as documented on "Bundles", recorded in the summer of 1974 but only released in the spring of 1975. This was the first Soft album not to bear a number, a sign that times were surely changing : the band had left CBS for EMI/Harvest, and also left the underground scene for a more mainstream approach at a time when American fusion bands were a dominant force (and reached their commercial peak).

Holdsworth left shortly after the release of "Bundles", and recommended fellow guitarist John Etheridge as a possible replacement. This proved satisfactory and in the summer of 1975 Soft Machine embarked on an ambitious, but ill-fated, package tour of European arenas with the likes of Caravan and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. From then on, the band's popularity waned as it failed to sustain the momentum initially gathered by its new orientation. Ratledge, the last remaining founding member, left in March 1976, leaving Soft Machine's reins in the hands of Jenkins and Marshall. "Softs" appeared later that year, with Alan Wakeman (the cousin of famous keyboard wizard Rick) on saxophone; a shortlived addition as he left after less than six months, to be replaced by a violin player, Ric Sanders. Babbington also left after a last appearance in Edinburgh, and was replaced first by Brand X's Percy Jones, and finally Steve Cook (ex-Gilgamesh/Mirage). The live album "Alive And Well, Recorded In Paris" (1978) documented a series of French gigs in July 1977. Soft Machine subsequently ground to a halt, perfoming its last gig in Bremen in December 1978.

Soft Machine was active again for one more album - the purely studio affair, "Land Of Cockayne" (1981), with an all-star line-up featuring Allan Holdsworth and Jack Bruce alongside Jenkins and Marshall, but a rather uninspiring mixture of American fusion and orchestral 'muzak' - and a series of gigs at London's Ronnie Scotts club in the summer of 1984, with a line-up of Jenkins, Marshall, John Etheridge, Dave MacRae and bassist Paul Carmichael. Plans for further studio and live projects never materialized and indeed probably never will, as Karl Jenkins has found far more lucrative activities in the field of library, TV and advertisement music, most notably with his Adiemus project. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Soft Machine

Soft Machine @ You Tube

============ blogprock ============

Soft Machine

@ George Starostin's Review
Ooh Lord, what a band. Actually, the Soft Machine weren't always as unknown as they are now - at one point (the earliest point in their career), they seriously rivalled Pink Floyd as Britain's most bizarre underground outfit. They are also known as the most important band on the so-called "Canterbury progressive scene", together with lesser acts like Gong, Matching Mole, and others; although, to my mind, dubbing the Machine as "progressive rock" is a major mistake - they have absolutely nothing in common with bands like Yes, ELP, or Genesis.
The main, and crucial, difference between the Softs and Pink Floyd in their early days was that the Soft Machine never even smelled a whiff of 'commerciality' in their recordings, and compared to the band's first two albums, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn looks a wee bit like whatever Britney Spears has to offer us nowadays. Always atonal and dissonant, experimental, innovative and blaringly schizophrenic, yet always super-professional and far from amateurish, these early albums are indeed a tough nut to crack - but, as with every tough nut, once they're cracked, heaven waits inside...

Relative heaven, of course: at times I'm tempted to dismiss the band entirely as just a bunch of esoteric gag-producing showmen with no real substance to their music. Like with the contemporary Krautrock scene, the Machine's primary concern was with "sound", not "music", or, if you wish, with "soundifying" the actual music. Unlike such Krautrock geniuses as Can, however, the Machine's "sounds" were mostly based on random improvisations, not the kind of cold mathematical precision that characterized their German colleagues. Which, in the end, makes the Machine's albums even less accessible for the general public than Can or Kraftwerk or Faust or any other German Krautrock band.

The Machine win over the Krautrock scene in certain other respects, though. The "improvisatory" elements serve to make the music more humane and enjoyable for the kind of public that gets all nervous and fidgets its feet at the robotic German music. And these guys also had a sense of humour and a specific British inventiveness which the Germans always lacked; I mean, even if the particular melodies (or the particular lack of melodies) on the band's first two albums don't seem welcome to you, there's at least so many of them, and the band goes off in so many directions and tackles so many styles that it's at the least entertaining. In all, the "classic" Soft Machine albums haven't dated a wee bit - they still remain as one of the pinnacles of modern avantgarde, and should be heavily recommended for just about anybody interested in that kind of music.

Unfortunately, this exciting period didn't last for far too long - it lasted for no more than two, maybe three albums. The band spent its youthful period (1967) playing all kinds of poppy stuff with a psychedelic flavour, broke all kinds of new grounds with their debut album (1968), displayed all kinds of paranoid weirdness on their second album (1969), and predicted all kinds of New Age and ambient music with their third album (1970). This is usually considered the "classic" period - the era which saw Soft Machine's main and most important contributions to rock music. However, by 1971 the band suddenly broke up with its revolutionary past and preferred to retread into a safe, cozy niche playing quiet, unobtrusive jazz-rock - or, what the hell, at times it was just modern jazz. Actually, the band had always been somewhat "jazzy" (they almost never even had a guitar player, except for a couple albums), but since their fourth album, the music lost any possible connections with "rock" - for better or for worse (for me - certainly for worse, as I'm not a great fan of modern jazz). Perversely enough, the band's "jazz" catalog has by far overshadowed their initial three albums: with endlessly changing lineups they continued pumping out new and new records, some of them slightly more interesting, some less, some completely dull and some containing certain delicious slices of music that can easily be overlooked through all the mediocrity (be sure to scoop up 1975's Bundles as the pinnacle of this period), but none of them ever broke the charts, and most are extremely hard to find nowadays. Their last studio album came out as late as 1981, when not a single original member was already left, and as far as I know, the band continued as a touring act until the 1990s, but this hardly had anything to do with the Soft Machine as much.

Somehow I have managed to acquire pretty much every studio effort the Soft Machine have originally put out, and, though I definitely wasn't charmed at first, some of these records actually grow on you to a certain extent. I still can't give them more than a D rating, though - if I tried to do otherwise, I'd have to condemn myself as a hopeless snob, or at least raise Frank Zappa's rating to an A+ which I won't do anyway. Frankly speaking, there's just way too much dreck in the band's catalog - even in the prime 1968-70 days, the guys never knew exactly when to stop, and far too often, they cross that dangerous line which separates brilliant avantgarde from avantgarde for avantgarde's sake. And I warn everybody: stay away from the Softs if you weren't too wild about Zappa or Captain Beefheart in the first place, because this takes just a little bit more tolerance than listening to those two monsters of weirdness. Of course, the post-1970 albums are far more accessible - there ain't too much weirdness about your average avantgarde jazz-fusion - but they are also far less innovative and far less memorable, in the long run.

I won't bring up the entire lineup here - if you don't have any idea about what a "revolving door principle" is, just look up "Soft Machine" in any rock encyclopaedia. Pretty much every following album had some lineup change or other, until, like I've already said, there wasn't a single original member left. Principal figures in the cult, however, seem to be: Robert Wyatt - the great weird drummer who's also well-known for certain collaborations with the Roxy crowd like Brian Eno or Phil Manzanera, and, of course, for his own prolific solo career; Mike Ratledge - the organ player, the Softs' backbone through most of their truly creative period; Hugh Hopper - the Softs' principal bass player. The latter-day Soft Machine period was characterized by active contributions from Karl Jenkins - a terrific brass player who was often (but not always) able to pull the band out of their misery, but not enough to make them dent the charts or anything. As for the exact lineups, I'll probably just mention them for every subsequent record, instead of baffling the reader in the introduction paragraph which, in that case, would probably take up thrice as much space as it does now.

General Evaluation:
Listenability: 0/5. It's with great big pride that I award these guys this rating, actually.
Resonance: 0/5. See above.
Originality: 4/5. The first albums sprung out of near-nowhere.
Adequacy: 3/5. Points are taken seriously off due to all the pompous fusion stuff.
Diversity: 3/5. Most of their diversity was demonstrated during the first three years of their existence, but even that is enough.
Overall: 2.0 = D on the rating scale....... =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Richie Unterberger @ All Music
Soft Machine were never a commercial enterprise and indeed still remain unknown even to many listeners who came of age during the late '60s, when the group was at its peak. In their own way, however, they were one of the more influential bands of their era, and certainly one of the most influential underground ones. One of the original British psychedelic groups, they were also instrumental in the birth of both progressive rock and jazz-rock. They were also the central foundation of the family tree of the "Canterbury Scene" of British progressive rock acts, a movement that also included Caravan, Gong, Matching Mole, and National Health, not to mention the distinguished solo careers of founding members Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers.

Considering their well-known experimental and avant-garde leanings, the roots of Soft Machine were in some respects surprisingly conventional. In the mid-'60s, Wyatt sang and drummed with the Wilde Flowers, a Canterbury group that played more or less conventional pop and soul covers of the day. Future Soft Machine members Ayers and Hugh Hopper would also pass through the Wilde Flowers, whose original material began to reflect an odd sensibility, cultivated by their highly educated backgrounds and a passion for improvised jazz. In 1966, Wyatt teamed up with bassist/singer Ayers, keyboardist Mike Ratledge, and Australian guitarist Daevid Allen to form the first lineup of Soft Machine.

This incarnation of the group, along with Pink Floyd and Tomorrow, were the very first underground psychedelic bands in Britain, and quickly became well loved in the burgeoning London psychedelic underground. Their first recordings (many of which only surfaced years later on compilations of 1967 demos) were by far their most pop-oriented, which doesn't mean they weren't exciting or devoid of experimental elements. Surreal wordplay and unusually (for rock) complex instrumental interplay gave an innovative edge to their ebullient early psychedelic outings. They only managed to cut one (very good) single, though, which flopped. Allen, the weirdest of a colorful group of characters, had to leave the band when he was refused reentry into the U.K. after a stint in France, due to the expiration of his visa.

The remaining trio recorded its first proper album in 1968. The considerable melodic elements and vocal harmonies of their 1967 recordings were now giving way to more challenging, artier postures that sought -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not -- to meld the energy of psychedelic rock with the improvisational pulse of jazz. The Softs were taken on by Jimi Hendrix's management, leading to grueling stints supporting the Jimi Hendrix Experience on their 1968 American tours. Because of this, the group at this point was probably more well-known in the U.S. than their homeland. In fact, their debut LP was only issued, oddly, in the States. For a couple of months in 1968, strangely enough, Soft Machine became a quartet again with the addition of future Police guitarist Andy Summers, although that didn't work out, and they soon reverted to a trio. The punishing tours took their toll on the group, and Ayers had left by the end of 1968, to be replaced by Wyatt's old chum Hugh Hopper.

Their second album, Volume Two (1969), further submerged the band's pop elements in favor of extended jazzy compositions, with an increasingly lesser reliance on lyrics and vocals. Ratledge's fuzzy, buzzy organ and Wyatt's pummeling, imaginative drumming and scat vocals paced the band on material that became increasingly whimsical and surrealistic, if increasingly inaccessible to the pop/rock audience. For their third album, they went even further in these directions, expanding to a seven-piece by adding a horn section. This record virtually dispensed with vocals and conventional rock songs entirely, and is considered a landmark by both progressive rock and jazz-rock aficionados, though it was too oblique for many rock listeners.

Soft Machine couldn't afford to continue to support a seven-member lineup, and scaled back to a quartet for their fourth album, retaining Elton Dean on sax. Wyatt had left by the end of 1971, briefly leading the similar Matching Mole, and then establishing a long-running solo career. In doing so he was following the path of Kevin Ayers, who already had several solo albums to his credit by the early '70s; Daevid Allen, for his part, had become a principal of Gong, one of the most prominent and enigmatic '70s progressive rock bands.

For most intents and purposes, Wyatt's departure spelled the end of Soft Machine's reign as an important band. Although Soft Machine was always a collaborative effort, Wyatt's humor, humanism, and soulful raspy vocals could not be replaced. Ratledge and Hopper kept the group going with other musicians, though by now they were an instrumental fusion group with little vestiges of their former playfulness. Hopper left in 1973, and Ratledge, the last original member, was gone by 1976. Other lineups continued to play under the Soft Machine name, amazingly, until the 1990s, but these were Soft Machine in name only. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Robert Wyatt

@ Wiki
Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945, in Bristol) is an English musician, and a former member of the influential Canterbury scene band Soft Machine.
Early life

As a teenager, he lived with his parents in Lydden near Dover. Here he was taught the drums by visiting American jazz drummer George Neidorf.

In 1962, Wyatt and Neidorf moved to Majorca where they stayed near the poet Robert Graves. The following year, Wyatt returned to England and joined the Daevid Allen Trio with Daevid Allen and Hugh Hopper. Allen subsequently left for France to form Gong, and Wyatt and Hopper formed the Wilde Flowers with Richard Sinclair, Kevin Ayers and Brian Hopper. Wyatt was initially the drummer in the Wilde Flowers, but following the departure of Ayers, he became lead singer.

Soft Machine and Matching Mole
In 1966, the Wilde Flowers disintegrated, and Wyatt and Mike Ratledge formed the Soft Machine with Ayers and Allen. Here Wyatt both drummed and sang, an unusual combination for a stage rock band.

In 1970, after chaotic touring, three albums and increasing internal conflicts in Soft Machine, Wyatt released his first solo album, The End of an Ear, which combined his vocal and multi-instrumental talents with tape effects.

A year later, Wyatt left Soft Machine and, besides participating in the fusion bigband Centipede, formed his own band Matching Mole (a pun on "machine molle", the French for Soft Machine), a largely instrumental outfit. After two albums and a split, Matching Mole were about to embark on a third record when, on 1 June 1973, during a drunken party, Wyatt jumped from a third floor window. He was subsequently paralysed from the waist down (paraplegia) and confined to a wheelchair.

Solo career
The injury led Wyatt to abandon the Matching Mole project, and his drumming. He promptly embarked on a solo-career, and with musician friends (including Mike Oldfield, the poet Ivor Cutler and Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith), he released his acclaimed solo-album Rock Bottom. Later that same year he put out a single, a cover version of "I'm a Believer", which hit number 29 in the UK chart. There were strong arguments with the producer of Top of the Pops surrounding his performance of "I'm a Believer," on the grounds that his wheelchair-bound appearance 'was not suitable for family viewing', the producer wanting Wyatt to appear on a normal chair. Wyatt won the day and 'lost his rag but not the wheel chair', but gave a performance that could be described as disgruntled.

Wyatt's next solo-album, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard, was more jazz-led, with free jazz influences and nods to African music. Guest musicians included Brian Eno on guitar, synthesizer and "direct inject anti-jazz ray gun". Rock Bottom was produced by Nick Mason and Wyatt would subsequently sing lead vocals on Nick Mason's 1981 solo album Fictitious Sports (the first solo album from the Pink Floyd drummer, with songwriting credits going to Carla Bley).

Throughout the rest of the 1970s, Wyatt guested with various acts, working with Henry Cow (documented on their Henry Cow Concerts album), Hatfield and the North, Carla Bley and Michael Mantler. His solo work during the early 1980s was increasingly politicised, and Wyatt became a member of the Communist Party of Britain. In 1982, his interpretation of Elvis Costello's anti-Falklands War song "Shipbuilding", the last in a series of political cover-versions (collected as Nothing Can Stop Us), reached number 35 in the UK singles chart.

In the late 1980s, after collaborations with other acts such as News from Babel as well as Japanese recording artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, he and his wife Alfreda Benge spent a sabbatical in Spain, before returning in 1991 with a comeback album Dondestan, considered by many to be his best work since Rock Bottom. His 1997 album Shleep was also highly acclaimed.

Wyatt contributed the haunting "Masters of the Field", as well as "The Highest Gander", "La Forêt Rouge" and "Hors Champ" to the soundtrack of the acclaimed 2001 film Winged Migration. He can be seen in the DVD's Special Features section, and is praised by the film's composer Bruno Coulais as being a big influence in his younger days.

Recent years
In 2001, Wyatt was curator of the Meltdown festival, and sang "Comfortably Numb" during David Gilmour's performance at the festival, recorded on Gilmour's DVD David Gilmour in Concert.

In 2003, Wyatt put out his album Cuckooland which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.

In 2004, Wyatt collaborated with Björk on the song "Submarine" which was released on her fifth album Medúlla.

"He lives in Louth, Lincolnshire and he has equipment in his bedroom where he records himself and his albums. We brought a G4 and Pro Tools and recorded it in like one afternoon. He's such an extraordinary singer. Before he left, he insisted to give us a scale of his voice, where he sings all the tones – and he has the most amazing range, like 5 or 6 octaves. What's really interesting about his range is that each octave is of a totally different character. We actually ended up using that later for "Oceania", we used what he calls the 'Wyattron'." — Björk, XFM 25 August 2004

In 2006, Wyatt played with David Gilmour on Gilmour's new release On An Island, singing and playing cornet and percussion on "Then I Close My Eyes." Wyatt performed as a guest at Gilmour's series of Royal Albert Hall concerts, playing his cornet solo for this song. Wyatt also read passages from the novels of Haruki Murakami for Max Richter's album Songs from Before.

In March 2007, it was announced that Wyatt was working on a solo album for release in the autumn.

"Wyatting"
Recently the noun "Wyatting", named obviously after Robert Wyatt, appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. The name was coined by Carl Neville, a 36-year-old English teacher from London, because one of the favourites LPs for this effect is Dondestan.

Robert Wyatt was quoted in The Guardian: as saying "I think it's really funny," and "I'm very honoured at the idea of becoming a verb [sic]." However, when asked if he would ever try it himself, he said "Oh no. I don't really like disconcerting people. Although often when I try to be normal I disconcert anyway." =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

John Dougan @ All Music
An enduring figure who came to prominence in the early days of the English art rock scene, Robert Wyatt has produced a significant body of work, both as the original drummer for art rockers Soft Machine and as a radical political singer/songwriter. Born in Bristol, England, Wyatt came to Soft Machine during the exciting, slightly post-psychedelic Canterbury Scene of the mid-'60s that produced bands like Gong and Pink Floyd. Unlike many of the art rock bands that would come later (Jethro Tull, Yes, King Crimson), Soft Machine eschewed bloated theatrical excess, preferring a standard rock format that interpolated jazz riffing, extended soloing, and some forays into experimental noise. Wyatt, then Soft Machine's drummer, left the band during its initial wave of popularity. His solo career was built less around his abilities as a percussionist and more around his frail tenor voice, capable of breaking hearts with its falsetto range.

It was not long after his first solo release, End of an Ear, that Wyatt fell from an open window during a party, fracturing his back and permanently paralyzing him from the waist down. After months of painful recuperation, Wyatt reemerged with the harrowing Rock Bottom (1974) and the bizarre Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard (1975), the former dealing explicitly with his post-accident life, the latter a series of surreal fables. And while the music on these records is trance-like and experimental, Wyatt shockingly recorded a straight version of the Monkees' "I'm a Believer" in 1974 that became a big British hit. Controversy ensued when the BBC's long-running weekly pop music program Top of the Pops refused to allow Wyatt to perform the song in his wheelchair. After a significant protest played out in the music trade papers, Wyatt did perform.

Despite his success, Wyatt remained quiet for much of the rest of the decade, breaking his silence during the punk era with a handful of singles recorded for the great English indie label Rough Trade. Again, going against audience expectations, he recorded a beautiful version of Chic's "At Last I Am Free." This signaled the start of a full-fledged career renaissance that included numerous albums and artists such as Elvis Costello writing songs for him. His albums were lush, at times almost meditative, and Wyatt's voice -- clear, emotionally charged, and always on the verge of breaking -- brought great depth and soul to songs that, if recorded by a lesser artist, would have sounded terse and tired.

Always on the political left, Wyatt's radicalism increased exponentially during Margaret Thatcher's years as Prime Minister, as he maintained an unwavering support for Communism even as glasnost was nigh. The resulting music he recorded during this period reflects his strong, bordering on strident, political beliefs. As of the mid-2000s, Wyatt has comfortably worked in and out of the music business. He records when he feels like it, paints, writes, devotes time to political work, and continues to show no interest in the machinations of the music industry. But, despite his occasionally strident political posture, he has recorded some stunning music, full of wonder, possibility, and pure emotion, that remains undiscovered by many. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

Robert Wyatt performing "Gharbadzegi"

Robert Wyatt @ You Tube

============ blogprock ============

Mike Ratledge

Dave Lynch @ All Music
By all accounts, keyboardist/composer Mike Ratledge has had a rather interesting and diverse career inside and outside of music in the three decades since departing Soft Machine in 1976, and despite some of the negative experiences he appears to have had with the band, there are few signs (in print anyway) that he looks back at his Softs years with tremendous disappointment or misgivings. Nevertheless, one wonders if he is at least mildly irritated at certain music historians who arguably tend to devalue his contributions to one of the most pioneering and innovative bands to emerge during the late-'60s and early-'70s heyday of exploration in pop, rock, and jazz.

If Ratledge sometimes seems to be underappreciated in certain Soft Machine album reviews and biographical summaries written by the conventional rock press, there are a few possible reasons. First, he wasn't a singer with the band, and at least in the rock world even instrumental virtuosos receive scant attention unless they open their traps and belt out a song once in a while. Secondly, during the Softs' early heyday he was arguably the principal force pushing the band away from the type of music rock audiences and critics relate to the most -- namely, "rock." Soft Machine were never a particularly commercial enterprise but it's still a giant leap from the psychedelic poppiness of "Love Makes Sweet Music" b/w "Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'," the group's debut single in 1967, to the trippy minimalist looping, odd time signatures, unheard-of sonic textures, extended legato soloing, modal jazz structures, and innovative use of counterpoint heard in Ratledge's "Out-Bloody-Rageous," which filled an entire side of the two-LP Third set in 1970. Soft Machine were a collective and Ratledge was not the band's "leader" per se, but no other bandmember was more responsible for the Softs' stunning three-year trajectory from purveyors of somewhat whimsical stream-of-consciousness psychedelic pop to the more "serious" groundbreaking contemporary music that to this day defies easy categorization.

And also, Ratledge committed the cardinal sin of sticking around just a bit too long. Creatively, the keyboardist/composer probably peaked circa 1970-1971, but stayed with the Softs for another five years, still delivering some fine music that now deserves a second look -- and is getting that look thanks to archival releases like British Tour '75. Writing in his authoritative band biography named after Ratledge's "Out-Bloody-Rageous" track from Third, author Graham Bennett describes Ratledge finally leaving the band as "a sadly anonymous departure." Or perhaps, departures can be deemed sadly anonymous when they don't make great copy.

Mike Ratledge made great, innovative, and influential music, but among the members of Soft Machine he didn't make particularly great copy for journalists. Born in 1943 in Maidstone, Kent, he attended Canterbury's Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys two grades ahead of future Softs members Robert Wyatt (then Robert Ellidge) and Hugh Hopper, and his childhood was marked by piano lessons, music theory, and classical music. As a teenager he became interested in avant-garde jazz, notably Cecil Taylor, but Bennett's book places him somewhat to the periphery of the circle of youthful adventurers and experimenters -- Wyatt, Hugh Hopper and his brother Brian, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen, et al. -- whose musical exploits became the first bricks laid in the foundation of Soft Machine. In fact, in the early '60s when future Softs members were abandoning conventionality and pursuing pleasures musical and otherwise in London, Paris, and Majorca, Ratledge was attending University College Oxford on a state scholarship.

Ratledge did sit in as a guest pianist on live gigs by the Daevid Allen Trio (Allen, Wyatt, and Hugh Hopper) in 1963, but was still at Oxford and not a regular member of the group; nor was the keyboardist a member of the Wilde Flowers, the British beat and soul-influenced band considered by many to be the precursor to Soft Machine and linchpin of the entire Canterbury scene. However, it is noteworthy that, although Out-Bloody-Rageous depicts ongoing interest in all things free and avant-garde among future Softs members during the early to mid-'60s, not much in the way of truly extraordinary music survives from this period -- not that these talented and exuberant kids should be expected to burst forth fully formed as geniuses (looking back, the participants now freely admit their early shortcomings) or that high-quality recordings of them would have been made in the first place. Nevertheless, things seem to have really taken off after Ratledge graduated from Oxford during 1964, moved to London during 1965 following a bit of time in New York City, and then joined Wyatt, Allen, Ayers, and guitarist Larry Nowlin in Soft Machine during 1966.

Almost immediately, Soft Machine began undergoing a series of abrupt personnel changes and stylistic experimentation, and a "family tree" of the band in Out-Bloody-Rageous depicts 17 incarnations of the group featuring Ratledge, with the keyboardist/composer present at the band's formation in August 1966 and persevering for a full decade until finally packing up his fuzz pedal and heading out the door in March 1976. The aforementioned early years, however, are the most astounding -- it is hard to think of any group in pop music making such radical transformations from album to album, and yet somehow retaining enough elements of a characteristic sound to keep the band's core identity intact. For that, listeners can thank Mike Ratledge and his Lowrey organ and fuzz box, his compositional style, and his soloing chops.

Ratledge's first organ in Soft Machine was a Vox Continental, which he soon replaced with a Lowrey Holiday Deluxe, relatively inexpensive compared with the Hammond he would have preferred. The Lowrey had a number of features that Ratledge put to good use (e.g., note bending), but suffered from a "weedy" quality (Ratledge's word) that the keyboardist remedied by using a fuzz box. With this setup plugged into a Marshall stack, seriously deranged volume levels were possible, but feedback was hard to avoid in the silences between notes. In a real-world example of the cliché about necessity being the mother of invention (and perhaps an inevitable Zappa reference as well), Ratledge found he could prevent feedback by avoiding the between-note gaps and forging on with his solos in a legato style, relentlessly pushing forward like a circular-breathing saxophonist who never takes a gulp of air until his solo is completely finished. Brian Hopper is quoted in the Bennett book describing the Ratledge soloing approach as "uncompromising strings of notes, leaps of musical structure and texture, and complex time signatures that all characterize a style not heard before or since."

Bennett himself notes that, although they had famously been used with guitars in rock music, "it was Mike Ratledge who apparently first thought of using a fuzz box with an organ." And fuzz organ soon became a signature sound of Canterbury-related keyboardists like Caravan's Dave Sinclair and Dave Stewart of Hatfield and the North and National Health. It should also be noted that, after replacing Kevin Ayers in Soft Machine, former band roadie Hugh Hopper was prompted to plug his bass into his own fuzz box in order to match the powerful overdriven burning tone of Ratledge's Lowrey.

On a grueling tour of the U.S. opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968, the first trio formation of Soft Machine (Ratledge, Wyatt, and Ayers) held its own with the legendary axeman, and those unable to catch the live dates would soon be able to hear the trio on the band's eponymously titled first LP recorded in New York City at the tour's conclusion. The Soft Machine is a classic of psychedelic pop/rock dominated by Wyatt's idiosyncratic and self-referential vocals, and while the second side of the disc featured a multi-track suite, discrete pop tune structures remain a dominant feature. Ratledge's fuzz organ style is already emerging -- he cuts loose right out of the starting gate on "Hope for Happiness," and both "So Boot If at All" and "Lullabye Letter" are effective vehicles for fiery organ solos, for example -- but classic Ratledge would be heard most prominently on the next year's Volume Two, recorded after Hopper replaced Ayers.

Early in the proceedings, the first portion of "Hibou, Anemone and Bear" displays a more sophisticated, jazzy Ratledge soloing freely over modal shifts and a tricky time signature, punctuated for the first time in the band's history by harmony sax riffing (provided by an overdubbed Brian Hopper on tenor and soprano). Volume Two closes with the "Esther's Nose Job" suite, with most of its individual sections written by Ratledge and with a cohesive, jazzy flow carrying the listener along. "Hibou, Anemone and Bear" and "Esther's Nose Job" in particular would become staples of the band's live performances (and excellent showcases for Ratledge's now patented organ sound and soloing approach); both pieces can be heard on such recommended archival releases as Noisette and Backwards on Cuneiform and "Esther's Nose Job" is featured on the noteworthy BBC Radio 1967-1971.

Continuing further along the path set by "Hibou, Anemone and Bear" and "Esther's Nose Job," Ratledge would reach his peak as a composer after Soft Machine signed a multi-album deal with Columbia and recorded Third and Fourth with the "classic" lineup of Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, and saxophonist Elton Dean supplemented by other hornmen in the band's orbit. "Slightly All the Time" (with sections written by Hopper) and "Out-Bloody-Rageous" on Third and "Teeth" on Fourth were creative jazz-rock of the highest caliber, despite some shortcomings in recording quality. Complex and multi-sectioned, these are fully realized compositions that combine diverse jazz, classical, minimalist, and experimental influences (Coltrane, Miles, and Terry Riley to name three) into something entirely unique that straddles a number of musical contradictions -- muted in its textures yet burning in tone, intricately complex yet propulsive, passionate yet austere, attention-grabbing yet possessing a spacy ambience. This was extended-form music to get lost in for listeners who had moved past the "pop" in psychedelic pop and weren't satisfied with three-minute "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"-styled snippets about somebody else's psychedelic experiences. This music was the real thing, and Mike Ratledge was key to its creation.

Conventional wisdom holds that Soft Machine plummeted off a creative cliff after drummer/vocalist Wyatt left between the recording of Fourth and Fifth, and therefore Wyatt must have been the man most responsible for the band's unique character and importance as a musical force up to this point. And while Wyatt's central role as the band's one-of-a-kind singer and oddball lyricist, not to mention powerhouse drummer, cannot be overlooked, it is exactly this type of conventional wisdom that fails to acknowledge Ratledge -- and also Hopper -- as mainly responsible for the creative apex documented on Third and Fourth. Wyatt's side-long "Moon in June," after all, was a modified re-recording of a piece he had first set to tape in 1968 (as heard on Backwards), and thus was far from the type of new work being penned by Ratledge (and Hopper) that propelled the group into uncharted territories during 1970-1971. With the increasing prominence of pieces like "Out-Bloody-Rageous," "Slightly All the Time," and "Teeth" in the Softs' repertoire, Wyatt was proving himself to be a remarkable jazz-rock drummer, but no longer central to the group's vision. Yes, Soft Machine did implode after Fourth, concurrent with Wyatt's departure, but his leaving was not responsible for the group's eminent decline any more than he could be viewed as the composer of "Teeth."

What did prevent the band from continuing its upward path was the collective nature of Soft Machine as an enterprise, the resultant inevitable "creative differences" and sometimes strained relationships arising among the remaining principals, and the revolving-door personnel changes that would ensue for the next five years of the band's history (which left Ratledge stuck in the turning door as other musicians entered and left the building). Saxophonist Elton Dean was pulling the band in a free jazz, more fully improvised direction, which led to the brief appearance of Phil Howard as drummer on one side of Fifth; after Ratledge and Hopper prevailed in favor of John Marshall as a replacement for Howard, Dean also left, to be replaced by keyboardist/reedman/composer Karl Jenkins. Hopper would be next to leave, with Roy Babbington (who had premiered with the band on Fourth) taking his place on bass, and by then (the release of Seven, Soft Machine's final Columbia album before signing with Harvest) Ratledge was the last original member in the band. In fact, since Marshall, Jenkins, and Babbington were all former members of Nucleus, the group had evolved into a curious mix of three-fourths Nucleus and one-fourth Soft Machine.

Ratledge was also losing interest during these so-called fusion years, and it was fortuitous that Jenkins' compositional style was compatible with the direction the band was taking when the former Nucleus member joined prior to the release of Six. Like Ratledge, Jenkins wrote compositions that featured spacy looping interludes, odd time signatures, ostinato basslines underpinning reed and organ solos, and memorable thematic material possessing both logic and unpredictability. Jenkins also began focusing more exclusively on keyboards and dropping the reeds during the mid-'70s, and Ratledge's retreat became all the more inevitable.

And yet, even after the passing of the torch to Jenkins was well underway, Ratledge remained an inspired player until the very end of his tenure with the band. The soloing spotlight shifted to new recruit guitarist Allan Holdsworth at the end of 1973 and then guitarist John Etheridge (who replaced Holdsworth in April 1975), but Ratledge was still capable of cranking up the old fuzz organ, matching some of the best electric piano of the entire fusion era, and also throwing some new curve balls at a live audience on EMS synthesizer as late as the end of 1975, as heard on the British Tour '75 CD recorded at Nottingham University in October of that year. He was still a compelling presence on keyboards, with a unique quality that retained elements of the classic Soft Machine instrumental sound a full decade after the band's formation and long after his original traveling companions had left to follow other pursuits.

Ratledge would be relegated to "guest" status on Softs, after departing the group in early 1976 when that album's recording sessions were underway. (Until archival releases began appearing after the band's breakup, the final Soft Machine album featuring Ratledge as a full-fledged member would be Bundles, the first of the group's Harvest-label albums, recorded in July 1974 and released in March of the following year.) And while the next several decades would see other former bandmembers continue their jazz, rock, and avant-garde musical careers -- with Hugh Hopper and Elton Dean particularly willing to continue Soft Machine-related journeys in groups like Soft Heap, Soft Works, and Soft Machine Legacy -- Ratledge essentially ended his days as a recording artist. He participated in sessions led by David Bedford and by Karl Jenkins, and followed Jenkins (who would find post-Soft Machine success with the neo-classical/new age Adiemus project) into the world of writing and producing background music for commercials. Returning once more to the Out-Bloody-Rageous book: Graham Bennett relates that, as of the mid-2000s, Ratledge had left music completely to pursue such activities as work on a CD-ROM concerning Venetian art and research for a British TV series on the history of facial hair.

Mike Ratledge was ultimately one of many musicians who shaped the character of Soft Machine over the group's ten-year history. It is interesting to note, however, that Bennett chose to name his extensive and authoritative book about the Softs after a Ratledge composition. As a word, "Out-Bloody-Rageous" is certainly a perfect title, one that succinctly encapsulates both the band and its era regardless of which Soft Machine member wrote the composition itself. Then again, one might argue that "Out-Bloody-Rageous," the composition, represents an absolute peak in the artistry of Soft Machine, and is a worthy title for that reason as well. And the composer of that piece, a musical high point for one of the finest ensembles to emerge from the heady days of the late '60s and early '70s, is none other than Mike Ratledge. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ NNDB
Mike Ratledge AKA Michael R Ratledge

Born: Apr-1943
Birthplace: Maidstone, Kent, England
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Musician
Nationality: England
Executive summary: Soft Machine keyboardist

Mike Ratledge began to develop his musical skills as a child, learning the piano and studying musical theory. His interest at the time was exclusively in the classical tradition, but by 1961 he had become yet another young, upstanding Brit lad lured down the evil path of jazz by Australian expatriate/cosmic gnome Daevid Allen; inevitably, this led to an association with fellow Allen victims Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper, with whom he would regularly indulge in his shameful jazz proclivities.

Rather than succumbing outright to his unnatural jazz urges as did his compatriots, Ratledge initially took the path of higher education -- continuing his classical studies and earning certification in psychology and philosophy. All to no avail: momentarily idle in his academic pursuits, he was lured into the ranks of the band Soft Machine by Allen, Wyatt and singer Kevin Ayers. He would remain in the band for the next 10 years, long after the other three founding members had left, while the band drifted gradually from imaginative sonic exploration into straightforward, run-of-the-mill jazz noodling. After finally turning in his own resignation, Ratledge largely dropped out the music scene.

A brief return to music took place late in the 80s, when Ratledge began collaborating with sometime Soft Machine cohort Karl Jenkins on compositions for the advertsing field. A joint record under the name Adiemus surfaced in 1995, but further musical activity from the keyboardist has yet to materialize.

University: Psychology and Philosophy, University College, Oxford University
Soft Machine Keyboardist 1966-76. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============

@ Calyx.Club
Born : April 1943 - Maidstone, Kent (England)
Past Bands : Soft Machine (1966-76), Adiemus (1993-95)

A most controversial figure of the Canterbury scene, Mike Ratledge largely remains a mystery. During his ten years in Soft Machine, he supported the band's musical evolution from a psychedelic/eccentric rock group to what many considered a technique-oriented jazz-rock band. Leaving the band in 1976, he has since embarked on a reclusive career as composer, arranger and producer for advertisements and theatre plays.

Michael R. Ratledge was born in 1943. He started learning the piano and musical theory as a child and grew up listening exclusively to classical music. While attending the Simon Langton School in Canterbury, he became friends with Brian Hopper, which resulted in the pair playing piano/clarinet renditions of classical pieces at Mike's house on Saturday mornings. Mainly under the influence of Daevid Allen, who arrived in Canterbury in 1961, Mike subsequently developed an interest in jazz. From the avant-garde works of pianist Cecil Taylor, he worked his way backwards and discovered Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Discovering a common interest in that music with other school pupils, he then started playing jazz with Robert Wyatt and the Hopper brothers.

Contrary to his friends, Mike Ratledge had a view to pursuing secondary studies, and subsequently attended the University College of Oxford. There he studied classical music, also working with avant-garde musicians such as Mal Dean and Rab Spall, and gained academic credentiels in philosophy and psychology. Applying too late for a grant in graduate studies at an American university, he found himself available when asked by his Canterbury friends to join a new band venture in August 1966. In the Spring of 1963, Mike had sat in with the Daevid Allen Trio (featuring Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt) in London. The new line-up, later called Soft Machine according to a suggestion of Mike's, included Allen, Wyatt and Kevin Ayers.

In many respects, Ratledge's subsequent career merged with the history of Soft Machine. He stayed in the band through its countless personnel changes. By 1973, he was the only founder member left, and when he left three years later, Karl Jenkins had already taken over the leadership of the Softs. After his departure, there were rumours of Ratledge setting up his own studio, which he did, but the projected solo album never materialized. Instead, he concentrated on library music. Although he did take part in albums by Rollercoaster and Planet Earth (two combinations of British jazz-rock musicians, most of which later appeared on the final Soft Machine album, Land Of Cockayne), Ratledge was not heard of until the late 1980's, when avid fans first discovered his works with former Softs accomplice Karl Jenkins for the advertising industry.

In 1995, Ratledge and Jenkins released the album Songs Of Sanctuary under the name Adiemus. Mainly the work of Jenkins (Ratledge is only credited with arranging the programmed percussion...), it was an unexpected return to the spotlight for him, although the music had little in common with his, and even Jenkins', old work. Ratledge was absent from the London concert of autumn '96 and is reportedly working on non-musical projects, including a CD-Rom on arts and screenplays for television. =>>>>>>>>>>>

============ blogprock ============