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Are Available In My E-Book
THE GROOVIEST 1960s MUSIC ON CD
"...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)...
