Review: Soft Machine – Third (1970)

Third is the third studio album by Soft Machine, founded in 1966.

Soft Machine lived through a turbulent period during the Third era. Keyboardist Mike Ratledge (b.1943) and bassist Hugh Hopper (1945-2009), who had joined the band on the previous album, had strained relations with drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt (b.1945). Problems arose in particular over musical differences. Ratledge and Hopper wanted to focus on complex instrumental music with a strong jazz leaning, while Wyatt would have preferred a simpler, more song-oriented approach. However, there were also personal problems between the trio which were at least partly due to Wyatt’s heavy drinking which made his behaviour sometimes intolerable. The band’s newest member, wind player Elton Dean (1945-2006), who had a strong experimental jazz background, also took the line of Ratledge and Hopper. Wyatt was left alone to fight for his own vision and felt increasingly overwhelmed.

On the third album, Soft Machine leaves behind almost all the pop influences that were still present on previous albums, and there are hardly any traces of psychedelia left, as the band moves towards a more distinctive jazz-rock style. The fragmented suites of small pieces from previous albums were also replaced by pieces that favoured longer arcs. Third is a massive body of work. The album was originally released as a double album, with each half of the album containing only one track of almost twenty minutes. To my knowledge, no band had ever done anything quite like it before, although Third’s jazz-rock rival Miles Davis’ groundbreaking Bitches Brew was also a double album and contained some lengthy tracks.

Third kicks off with the Hugh Hopper-composed ”Facelift” which is a combination of two parts recorded live in front of an audience with some additions in the studio.The 19-minute, highly experimental track starts with avant-garde organ riffs and drones. Slowly, as the song wavers, it grows from the sound effects growl of the beginning to a more musical one. Around the five minute mark, a great Lowrey riff finally introduces the song’s great theme with the introduction of Wyatt’s drums. Elton Dean’s gruff saxophones add their own edgy contribution to a sound that’s already like a scar tissue. The second half of the song is heavily inclined towards free jazz and Dean’s saxophone in particular dominates the music in a glorious way.

Next up, ”Slightly All The Time” is mostly composed by Ratledge (Hopper contributed a few parts) and heavily tilted towards avant-garde jazz. Although the composition is the work of keyboardist Ratledge, the saxophone and flute (guested by Jimmy Hastings) play a more prominent role than his organ. Elton Dean steals the show with his intense and skilful playing and there is no doubt that he was by far one of the toughest British percussionists of his generation. The song swings tasty in 11/4 and 11/8 time signatures and shows that although Robert Wyatt’s heart may have been elsewhere, he didn’t seem to have much trouble keeping up with the rest of the band even on the most complex songs. On the contrary, Wyatt’s playing throughout the album is skilful and elegant.

Read also: Soft Machine – Six (1973)

The only sung track on the album is the 19-minute ”Moon In June”, composed by Robert Wyatt, in which he delves into his own life in a stream of consciousness. So despite the vocals, this song is not really a pop tune either. Wyatt performed ”Moon In June” largely on his own. Apparently because the other members simply wouldn’t have wanted to contribute. In the first part of the three-part song, which lasts about ten minutes, Wyatt himself plays all the instruments (drums, bass, keyboards), with vocals taking centre stage throughout. From here we move into the upbeat second part where the whole band joins in. This instrumental part is a great listen in all its raucousness, even if the live versions were often even more energetic. The song ends with an atonal third section featuring a violin played by guest Rab Spall, which is then sometimes sped up, sometimes slowed down by manipulating the tapes to make it fit in with the rest of the music. ”Moon In June” is a bit of a frustrating piece because it has some really great parts, but on the other hand the ten minute vocal part is a bit sluggish and not always that impressive in terms of instrumentation, with Wyatt having to play instruments he doesn’t have a particularly good command of.

The final track on the album, ”Out-Bloody-Rageous”, is a Ratledge composition that shows his interest in minimalist music. Terry Riley’s influence is particularly evident in the song’s cyclical organ patterns and the back-and-forth tape loops. Ratledge uses a cleaner, more bell-like organ sound in the early part of the song than we were used to hearing from him. Around the five minute mark, the song enters a jazz-rock sequence as the rhythm section joins in with Dean’s saxophone. A little after six minutes, Ratledge launches into a fiery organ solo that is truly a blistering listen. After several minutes of organ soloing, the album settles down into a nice atmospheric section with Dean taking the spotlight with his soprano sax. At the end of the track we return to the elegantly minimalist atmosphere with a tape-recorded piano playing the opening theme.

Lue myös

Third is a great album and an interesting step in a new direction for Soft Machine. The songs on the album are perhaps a little too long, but the biggest single problem is the really muddled sounds. It’s rare to hear such a poorly recorded album from a major label artist and the sounds are so weak that the performance of the songs simply isn’t getting the full effect. It’s a bit like listening to the album on your sofa at home, but the music is playing on your neighbour’s stereo behind the wall. In fact, there are much better sounding live recordings of the songs from the same era.

With Third, released in June 1970, Soft Machine moved firmly into the experimental jazz-rock arena, and the even more stunning Fourth and Fifth albums that followed continued to explore this trend.

Best songs: ’Facelift’ and ’Slightly All The Time’

Rating: 4 out of 5.
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Read also: Colosseum – Valentyne Suite (1969)

Tracks

  1. ”Facelift” 18:45
  2. ”Slightly All the Time” 18:12
  3. ”Moon in June” 19:08
  4. ”Out-Bloody-Rageous” 19:10

Soft Machine

Elton Dean: alto saxophone, saxophone Mike Ratledge: Hohner Pianet, Lowrey organ, piano Hugh Hopper: bass guitar Robert Wyatt: drums, vocals, Hammond organ, Mellotron, Hohner Pianet, piano, bass.

Guests

Lyn Dobson: flute, soprano saxophone (1) Jimmy Hastings: flutes, bass clarinet (2, 4) Nick Evans: trombone (2, 4) Rab Spall: violin (3)

Producer: Soft Machine
Lable: CBS / Columbia

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