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Soft Machine

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For the book by William S. Burroughs, see The Soft Machine.
The Soft Machine was a pioneering English psychedelic, progressive rock and jazz 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.

Contents

Biography

The Soft Machine emerged out of an earlier band called the Wilde Flowers (a reference to Oscar Wilde). The Wilde Flowers included, at various times: Brian Hopper (guitar, saxophone, flute), Hugh Hopper (bass), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (vocals), Richard Sinclair (guitar, vocals), Pye Hastings (guitar, vocals), David Sinclair (keyboards) and Richard Coughlan (drums). These last four formed another successful Canterbury band, Caravan.

The Soft Machine was formed in 1966 by Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar) and Mike Ratledge (keyboards). This line-up recorded the group's first (and only) single, as well as some demo sessions that were released several years later. In 1967, upon their return from a performance in France, Allen (an Australian) was denied re-entry to England, so the group continued as a trio. In 1968 they toured the USA, opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. During this tour, they recorded their first album 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 launched a transition towards a purely instrumental sound resembling what would be later called fusion jazz. 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).

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 that it was a two-record set, with each of the four sides featuring one suite.

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 and, some months later, to Dean's departure. They were replaced respectively by John Marshall (drums) and Karl Jenkins (reeds, keyboards), both former members of Ian Carr's Nucleus. In 1973, Hopper left, and in 1976, Ratledge, the last remaining original member of the band, was also gone. Other musicians in the band during the later period were bassists Roy Babbington and [Steve Cook], guitarists Allan Holdsworth and John Etheridge, 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 and for a few live shows in 1984, but these featured Jenkins and Marshall with groups assembled just for those performances.

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. Both of these groups performed some pieces from the original Soft Machine repertoire as well as newer material.

Graham Bennett's Soft Machine biography, Out-Bloody-Rageous was published in September 2005.

Awards

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

 

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