Album title: Third
Artist: Soft Machine
Nationality: English
Label: CBS/Columbia
Chronology: Um, third?
Grade: A
Landmark value: Not an idea. Canterbury, Canterbury and, oh what’s that other word? Oh yeah. Canterbury. Shrug.
Tracklisting: Facelift/Slightly All the Time/Moon in June/Out-bloody-rageous
Comments: well, nobody could ever accuse Soft Machine of originality in the choice of album titles, could they? Their first album was self-titled (fair enough) their second called
Volume II, this one, their third, they decided to call
Third, the next is
Fourth, the fifth is… well, you get the idea. It seems that Soft Machine may have pioneered, begun or at least perfected the art of fusion, as their albums all seem to cross over into jazz territory, taking some electronic and avant-garde detours on the way. There are only four tracks on this, but not one is under eighteen minutes, so that’s still well over an hour of music.
It’s pretty freaky, as I’ve come to see is the case usually with this band; a lot of effects of some sort (quite impressive, given the time and the limited availability of options) and the horns are high up in the mix for sure but hey, I’ll admit, it’s damn catchy, and I think that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that about a Soft Machine album. “Slightly All the Time” continues this trend with a pretty relaxing, laconic slow jazz brass section taking most of the melody, some very nice bass and a fine piano line. I don’t know if I mentioned this before (or even realised it) but this band don’t use guitars. At all. Other than bass, and on the previous album I think there was one track where an acoustic guitar was used, but there are none on this. And really, the album does not suffer from the loss of what should be so integral an instrument to any rock band. I’m not even sure where there’d be a place for guitar in this music.
For eighteen, in some cases nineteen-minute tracks these don’t drag as I had expected they might, or make me want to saw off my head with a blunt spoon. They’ve been pretty good so far really. Some sweet sax work right now, against a Hoehner pianet (you can tell I’m reading that off Wiki can’t you?
) which gives the track quite a spacey, atmospheric feel. Speeds up near the end and finishes up on a weird heavy organ, then the third track actually has vocals, which threw me a little. Driven mostly on organ, “Moon in June” gives me very much a feeling of really early Genesis - I’m talking debut here - though much heavier, and on into
Trespass. Well I would have sworn that was a guitar there - what else could it be? Hmm. Says here that this was the last song Soft Machine used with lyrics in it, and the last prog rock song. Oh dear. Anyway, it then develops into an instrumental jam, which fits in more with the rest of the album so far, though I could probably do without the last part, where the violin screeches all over the place.
And that leaves us with just one track to go. “Out-bloody-rageous” starts very slowly and quietly, building up to a pretty frenetic electronic instrumental thing that’s quite ahead of its time; the kind of thing you’d hear Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and the like play years from now. Morphs then into a cool jam on mostly piano and organ, again very jazzy but not at all (to me) annoying and back to the electronic thing.
Favourite track(s): Can’t honestly say there was anything on this I didn’t like
Least favourite track(s): Can’t honestly say there was anything on this I didn’t like
Overall impression: A huge step up in terms of how I appreciate this band. The first two albums did nothing for me. Here, they’re crossing over into electronic and jazz territory, melding the two and - which is very important - not boring the crap out of me in the process. A real triumph. I’ll rate them higher from here on in if this continues.
Personal Rating: 
Legacy Rating:
Final Rating: