"Volume Two" by THE SOFT MACHINE – August 1969 Second US Album on Probe/ABC/Command Records in Stereo (November 1969 in the UK on Probe Records, Their First LP released in the UK) – featuring Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge and Hugh Hopper with Guest Brian Hopper on Saxophone (August 2009 UK Polydor/UMC Straightforward CD Reissue – Paschal Byrne Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Dada Was Here..."

Do you remember when weird was good, even beloved and revered? Well, welcome to The Soft Machine's second album – all late 60ts Experimental, Prog Rock, Avant Garde, Jazz Rock, Comedic and at times my post-pandemic brethren of Covid-19 bleary-eyed zombie monsters - just plain batshit. Would we have it any other way...

Following immediately on from an intense and exhausting two-month US tour with Jimi Hendrix and his Band of Gypsys which saw Kevin Ayers up and leave – the new trio of Drummer and Singer Robert Wyatt, Keyboardist Mike Ratledge and Bassist Hugh Hopper joined forces with former Wilde Flowers Saxophonist Brian Hopper (brother of Hugh) to make their second platter in February and March of 1969.

Seventeen cuts were made with the 10-Track seventeen-minutes-ish Side 1 being called "Rivmic Melodies" and the 7-Track sixteen-minute-ish Side 2 wittily entitled "Esther's Nose Job" (well of course it is). Many of the cuts were just snippets really (less than a minute) some including only dialogue (Wyatt reciting the alphabet forward and backwards). And as other reviewers have quite rightly commented – with slot number two, Soft Machine moved into all manner of genre-realms that seemed to leave ordinary song structure in the dust. They really don't make record albums like this any more, and in September 2020, there appears to be little room for them even they did.

By the time the vinyl gatefold LP hit the American shops in early August 1969 on Probe/ABC/Command Records CPLP 4505 (UK fans would see it be the band's first LP release in Blighty in November 1969 on Probe Records SPB 1002 in a single laminate sleeve) – Ayers was already signing to the then emerging Prog-Rock based Harvest Records label for his first solo album. But let's get pataphysical baby and go back to platter numero duo, then on to this rather good 2009 Paschal Byrne Remaster...

UK released 3 August 2009 - "Volume Two" by THE SOFT MACHINE on Polydor/UMC 532 050-6 (Barcode 600753205068) is a straightforward CD Reissue and Remaster of their second studio album from 1969 and plays out as follows (33:33 minutes):

RIVMIC MELODIES [Side 1]

1. Pataphysical Introduction - Pt. I

2. A Concise British Alphabet - Pt. I

3. Hibou, Anemone And Bear

4. A Concise British Alphabet - Pt. II

5. Hulloder

6. Dada Was Here

7. Thank You Pierrot Lunaire

8. Have You Ever Bean Green?

9. Pataphysical Introduction - Pt. II

10. Out Of Tunes

ESTHER'S NOSE JOB [Side 2]

11. As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still

12. Dedicated To You But When You Weren't Listening

13. Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging

14. Pig

15. Orange Skin Food

16. A Door Opens And Closes

17. 10:30 Returns To The Bedroom

Tracks 1 to 17 are their second studio album "Volume Two" - released August 1969 in the USA on Probe/ABC/Command Records CPLP 4505 and November 1969 in the UK on Probe Records SPB 1002. Produced by THE SOFT MACHINE - it didn't chart in either country.

 

The 16-page booklet is a pleasingly in-depth and pretty affair. It even gives a photo of The Wilde Flowers with three of the Softs looking suitably 'with it' as they ponder Beat Poetry and Dadaism - brothers Hugh and Brian Hopper with Robert Wyatt and drummer Richard Coughlan (who would later join those other Canterbury stalwarts Caravan). There are trade adverts (would you feed your daughter to the soft machine?), Psychedelic posters of the period, a label repro of their ultra-rare February 1967 debut British 45 "Love Makes Sweet Music" on Polydor 56151, the band as a three-piece and then a four-piece and so on. MARK POWELL of Esoteric Recordings fame does the superbly detailed liner notes for both the self-titled "The Soft Machine" debut and "Volume Two" in this 2009 CD Reissue and Remaster series (both discs are dedicated to Hugh Hopper who had passed in June 2009).

 

A fave Audio Engineer of mine PASCHAL BYRNE has done the remaster - 24-bit transfers from original tapes and it sounds amazing to my ears. I had the British LP for decades and it was good, but not like this. We're not talking audiophile here, but the upgrade is palatable and to my ears, properly improved. To the experimental artefacts of earnest men and their questionable choice of trouser patterns...

 

RIVMIC MELODIES opens proceedings with a throwaway pairing - Robert Wyatt introducing the 'British Alphabet' behind a one-minute piano refrain while his actual ABCs that follow lasts only 10 seconds. The first song-proper is actually "Hibou, Anemone And Bear" - nearly six minutes of Prog Jazz Rock - Ratledge giving it some wildman on the organ while the rhythm section tries to keep up with his soloing. More alphabet musings but this time Pt. 2 of the alphabet is 'backwards' - which is in turn followed by "Hulloder" – a 60-second pondering on FBI surveillance of humanoid counter-culture threats (pesky things called people – or students – depending on which Communist you talk to). The manic and cluttered "Dada Was Here" has always felt to me like something special is going on – a vibe almost – a lingering in that rhythm section that exudes period cool. Wyatt’s voice floats in "Have You Ever Bean Green?" over the instruments searching for a groove whilst the Side 1 finisher "Out Of Tunes" is just insufferable tuneless nonsense.

 

The Softs go Crimson before-the-debut-jagged with "As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still" while "Dedicated To You..." is uncharacteristically pretty sporting a whole heap of great lyrics about Chicken Pox and Oxygen and Geophysics and advise not to use magnets (it also has probably the best Production values of the whole album). "Fire Engine..." is once again a discordant nonsense too far but Wyatt goes on about time wasted in the rapido "Pig". The final three see the band jag and jab in full-on Prog Jazz Rock fashion – taking no prisoners as they break down musical boundaries and live up to that freaky front-sleeve artwork.

 

"...Everyone's heads are more together. After hearing this album, yours will be also..." read the original LP sleeve in 1969.

 

In September 2020 those rather embellishing liner notes may not exactly ring true for today's musical journeyman (Soft Machine's second will absolutely not be for everyone). But in you are up for a bit of a whig out accompanied by the falsetto voice of a Radio 1 presenter doing drugs – then lie perfectly still man and embrace the weird baby (you know you want to)...