Regarding Soft Machine's The Harvest Years, that is a compilation mostly comprised of the albums Bundles and Softs. These are so late in the discography and so late in the band history that the glory days are generally thought of as past and the only original member that can still be found on some of the songs is Mike Ratledge who at the time, I believe, hated being in the band.
I'm not so familiar with the songs from Softs, but the ones from Bundles are generally a brighter spot in the late SM discography. But people who are seriously curious about the band should definitely check out their earlier stuff. Their first two records are wildly different in style, featuring singers (Robert Wyatt & Kevin Ayers), but then they changed to a more fusiony style with their well-known Third and then became even more jazzy with Fourth. Their debut is interesting, but I'm most fond of their second, third and fourth albums which are all quite distinct from eachother. But, of course, none of those feature Allan Holdsworth.
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