A few weeks after the release of the incredible Fourth, the classic quartet of the Soft Machine–Mike Ratledge, Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt–played an unlikely two-night stand in an art museum in Høvikodden, Norway, some twenty minutes outside of Oslo. Personal relations within the band were low; tensions were high; and founding drummer Robert Wyatt was already looking for the exit. But what transpired on those nights, now captured in a massive archival release from Cuneiform Records, was arguably the finest incarnation of the Softs at the absolute peak of their powers. Høvikoddden 1971 documents a band torn between shrieking free jazz, throbbing minimalism, psychedelic space rock and fuzzy, proto-punk garage stomp–suspended between their avant-pop beginnings and their fusion future. A three-hour, four LP slab of the Soft Machine may be too much for the casual fan. Or it might just be the ideal point of entry.
Category: Soft Machine
Soft Machine :: Live At Jazz Bilzen
Dig into this priceless footage of Soft Machine performing an early take of Robert Wyatt’s magnum opus, “Moon in June”. With bassist Hugh Hopper rounding out the trio (following the departure of Kevin Ayers), this Wyatt/Ratledge/Hopper line-up is the force behind Volume Two and “Moon in June” landing spot, Third, in which the band plunged further into merging obtuse psychedelia with their singular brew of jazz fusion. Joined by the likes of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, Shocking Blue and Keith Jarrett, Jazz Bilzen might have been the perfect setting for the peak of this seminal trio.
Soft Machine :: French Televison 1967
Filmed in 1967. Broadcast via Ce Soir On Danse, TV France–August 25, 1968. Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Kevin Ayers.
Robert Wyatt :: Rivmic Melodies
“The missing links in my life’s work, no less!” – Robert Wyatt
How’s that for an endorsement? Though two of the tracks were later re-recorded by the group (appearing on Soft Machine’s second and third albums), Wyatt’s original renderings provide much more than a cursory, academic glimpse into the nascent material. Loose, intimate and inspired, these nearly forgotten demos document the young artist’s muse in motion during an ascendant period of Soft Machine’s creative trajectory.