The Soft Machine Vol.2, Soft Machine

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catalog number: CDSC6306
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UNPRECEDENTED U.K. PSYCHEDELIC-PROGRESSIVE-JAZZ-ROCK! The aptly titled Volume Two... more

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The Soft Machine: Vol.2, Soft Machine

UNPRECEDENTED U.K. PSYCHEDELIC-PROGRESSIVE-JAZZ-ROCK!

The aptly titled Volume Two introduced a retooled Soft Machine lineup, with Wyatt and Ratledge joined by bassist Hugh Hopper, an old Canterbury friend who had guested on the first album. The sophomore disc finds the threesome moving towards a more explicitly jazz-influenced sound, with an increased emphasis on instrumental material. The album is bookended by a pair of extended compositions, "Rivmic Melodies" and "Esther's Nose Job," which are broken up into shorter individual tracks bearing whimsically arbitrary titles. That approach was suggested to the band by Frank Zappa, whose Mothers of Invention album Absolutely Free was reportedly an influence on Volume Two.

The first two albums by England's legendary Soft Machine, originally released in 1968 and 1969, remain among the most innovative and influential releases of that musically fertile era. These seminal LPs offered a visionary psychedelic-progressive-jazz-rock mix that helped to make the Soft Machine one of Britain's first significant underground bands, as well as a key force in the birth of both progressive rock and jazz-rock.

This landmark gem has been out of print for decades, but now it is back in a meticulously packaged Sundazed compact disc edition. Mastered from the original analog tapes, this lovingly restored album sounds as powerful and imaginative as ever.

A product of the same fabled Canterbury scene that spawned such beloved cult acts as Caravan and Hatfield and the North, the Soft Machine was the rare art-rock combo whose members possessed the instrumental skills to execute their ambitious musical ideas, as well as a playful sense of humor that balanced the band's complex compositions and adventurous improvisations. By the time they began making albums, the Soft Machine was already a sensation in the budding U.K. rock underground, thanks to their now-legendary performances at such fabled London clubs as the UFO, the Speakeasy and Middle Earth, where they shared stages with the likes of Pink Floyd and Tomorrow.

Article properties: The Soft Machine: Vol.2, Soft Machine

Interpret: The Soft Machine
Album titlle: Vol.2, Soft Machine
Genre Beat
Preiscode VCD6
Label SUNDAZED
Artikelart CD
EAN: 0090771630629
weight in Kg 0.1

Soft Machine - Vol.2, Soft Machine CD 1
01	Pataphysical Introduction [Part 1]	The Soft Machine
02	A Concise British Alphabet [Part 1]	The Soft Machine
03	Hibou, Anemone And Bear	The Soft Machine
04	A Concise British Alphabet [Part 2]	The Soft Machine
05	Hulloder	The Soft Machine
06	Dada Was Here	The Soft Machine
07	Thank You Pierrot Lunaire	The Soft Machine
08	Have You Ever Bean Green?	The Soft Machine
09	Pataphysical Introduction [Part 2]	The Soft Machine
10	Out of Tunes	The Soft Machine
11	As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still	The Soft Machine
12	Dedicated to you, but you weren't listening	The Soft Machine
13	Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging	The Soft Machine
14	Pig	The Soft Machine
15	Orange Skin Food	The Soft Machine
16	A Door Opens And Closes	The Soft Machine
17	10.30 returns to the bedroom	The Soft Machine

Soft Machine evolved through various jazz-oriented per-sonnel. The group took their name from... more

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"The Soft Machine"

Soft Machine evolved through various jazz-oriented per-sonnel. The group took their name from William Bur-roughs' novel after Australian guitarist, Daevid Allen, brought the influence of Terry Riley and tape-loops to the basic Kentish line-up of Kevin Ayers (bass, vocals), Mike Ratledge (keyboards, born 1943) and Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals).

They appeared regularly opposite the Pink Floyd in London, participated in a couple of abortive recording ses-sions in 1967, and presented their music (free improvisation over a rock base, plus vocals) in France with great success. Allen was refused re-entry to Britain because of visa and passport difficulties, and it was as a trio that the band under-took a gruelling American tour with Jimi Hendrix in 1968; they broke up after cutting their first LP for Probe in New York. When the album proved successful, they re-formed with Hugh Hopper (born 1945, a sympathetic sideman from. the days when they called themselves the Wilde Flowers) re-placing Ayers on bass. More albums (on CBS /Columbia) followed, featuring Wyatt's songs and Ratledge's angular experiments with time-signatures.

Four jazz hornmen were added for a French tour, and saxophonist Elton Dean stayed with them; their now strongly jazz-influenced sound, with fewer Wyatt vocals, represented rock at the London classical music Proms in 1970, and Wyatt left to form Matching Mole in September, 1971, shortly after an appearance at the New-port Jazz Festival. The jazz flavour remained, with Phil Howard then John Marshall on drums, Roy Babbington re-placing Hopper, and Karl Jenkins (keyboards, oboe and baritone saxophone) replacing Dean; on the Six album, jazz riff structures and Rileyesque pieces rub shoulders. More recently, jazz guitarist and violinist Alan Holdsworth has injected a slightly more urgent feeling into their brilliantly Played, carefully structured improvised rock, as on their 1975 Harvest album.

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