SOFT MACHINE
 Robert
Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen formed Soft Machine
in 1966. 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.
DISCOGRAPHY
Albums
The Soft Machine (ABC/Probe, 1968) Volume Two (ABC/Probe, 1969) Third
(Columbia, 1970) Fourth (Columbia, 1971) Fifth (Columbia, 1972) Six
(Columbia, 1973) Seven (Columbia, 1973) Bundles (Harvest, 1975) Softs
(Harvest, 1976) Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris (Harvest, 1978) Land
of Cockayne (EMI, 1981)
Singles
"Love Makes Sweet Music" / "Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'"
(Polydor UK, 1968) "Joy of a Toy" / "Why Are We
Sleeping?" (ABC Probe USA, 1968) "Soft Space (part 1)" /
"Soft Space (part 2)" (Harvest UK, 1977)
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