Review: The Soft Machine – Volume Two (1969)

Volume Two is the second studio album from The Soft Machine, a British band founded in 1966.

Soft Machine (The was later dropped from the name) was founded in 1966 in Canterbury by Robert Wyatt (b.1945), Kevin Ayers (1944-2013), Daevid Allen (1938-2015) and Mike Ratledge (b.1943). Daevid Allen (who later formed his own spacey prog band Gong) didn’t make it onto the band’s debut album, which was recorded by the remaining trio. Released in 1968, the untitled debut is a charming psychedelic rock album, a struggle between the pop leanings of Kevin Ayers and the more experimental impulses of Wyatt and Ratledge. Shortly after his debut, Ayers became frustrated with music he found too complex and left the music business altogether for a while, before returning later to build his own solo career with varying degrees of success.

After Ayers left, drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt and keyboardist Mike Ratledge recruited bassist Hugh Hopper (1945-2009) to replace him. Hopper had once played with Wyatt in Wilde Flowers and also served as Soft Machine’s roadie on a long US tour to support Jimi Hendrix. Like Ratledge and Wyatt, Hopper had a strong orientation towards jazz and experimental music. As a result, the pop element clearly faded from the band’s music, although it still resonates in Wyatt’s dadaist vocal parts. Soundwise, Hopper’s powerful rumbling fuzz bass was also an important and powerful addition to the band’s music. Hopper, who was far more technically skilled than Ayers, was a great recruitment for the band, as they now had a group of players with a consistent virtuosity.

Read also: Review: Soft Machine – Third (1970)

Volume Two’s music is frenetic, complex and chaotic. And sometimes downright absurd, especially in Wyatt’s Dadaist and sometimes down-to-earth humour and lyrics (Wyatt sings the alphabet backwards and forwards, and also about the band’s everyday experiences as Hendrix’s opening act). Of course, the constant onslaught of sound waves adds to the absurdity and makes the listening experience quite disconcerting at times. Defining a genre for an album is almost impossible. Basically, it’s progressive rock with jazz and psychedelia, but no one had ever done progressive rock like this before, or really ever would. Not even Soft Machine themselves, because the band was constantly changing direction from album to album. This would be, among other things, the last album on which Robert Wyatt’s vocals would play a significant role in the band’s music. Or anyone’s vocals at all. The band was on its way to pure instrumental music.

But without getting too far ahead of ourselves, let’s get back to Volume Two. The album consists of two long suites ”Rivmic Melodies” and ”Esther’s Nose Job” with two shorter tracks in between. The suites are actually single compositions, but Frank Zappa advised Hugh Hopper to split the long compositions into several parts in order to get more royalties. According to Mike Ratledge, however, the long song division was a record company requirement, based on the fact that radio DJs would have been more inclined to play short songs of a couple of minutes rather than long songs. Perhaps, but in the end the music on the album certainly didn’t get much airplay on the radio. Except for a few live appearances on John Peele’s show. There’s a third explanation for the suites: the band didn’t want to take breaks between songs live because, on the one hand, they were afraid no one would clap and, on the other hand, they wanted to live in a bubble unaffected by audience reactions. So the band started to tie their songs together in concerts as a continuous whole and this style was inherited by Volume Two.

The 17-minute ”Rivmic Melodies” on the first half of the album consists of 10 sections, ranging from 10 seconds to six minutes. Most of them are Hopper compositions with lyrics by Wyatt, but the highlight of the suite is its longest section, the six-minute Ratledge composition ”Hibou, Anemone and Bear” in 13/8 time. Ratledge plays a gorgeous organ solo over an upbeat piano, drum and saxophone backdrop. The song is the first saxophone appearance on a Soft Machine album. Hugh’s brother Brian Hopper plays the wind instruments on the album and appears on several tracks. From now on, the saxophone would be a major instrument on Soft Machine for several years to come. Not played by Brian anymore, though.

”Rivmic Melodies” is followed by two separate tracks (although some editions have mistakenly labelled them as part of the second suite). The first is the manic ”As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still”, composed by Ratledge, rocking in 7/4 time and accompanied by a buzzing organ, and ”Dedicated To You But You Weren’t Listening”, accompanied by Hopper’s acoustic guitar and Ratledge’s harpsichord, which is one of the few respites on an otherwise very intense and dense album.

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The 11-minute ”Esther’s Nose Job” on the B-side is almost entirely Ratledge’s handiwork. Ratledge’s suite seems to be even more challenging and experimental than the first. Ratledge’s tortured-sounding Lowrey growl is given plenty of space, and his playing is fine, if not always easy to listen to. The highlight of the suite is probably the two-minute section ’Pig’, in which Robert Wyatt sings about the joys of women’s underwear, but ends up saying that it’s still nicer when you’re naked. Ratledge’s organ roars and howls in the background like a hot piglet. Naughty. But fun! This is the kind of naughty little stuff that was to be found on many more of the so-called Canterbury scene albums in the future.

Knickers and panties
We are groping under knickers and pants
But is it worth it, all that time wasted?
Time we could’ve spent completely nude, bare, naked
With nothing on at all
Nothing, no clothes on
Nude, naked bare

Volume Two is a stunning album and a veritable musical adventure. Soft Machine’s first two albums were not big sellers, but they had a huge impact on many talented musicians, especially in the Canterbury scene, but also in the complex avant-prog that took off a little later.

Best tracks: Hibou, Anemone and Bear”, ”Pig” ja ”As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still”

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Author: JANNE YLIRUUSI
Read also: Review: Soft Machine – Fourth (1971)

Side A

  1. ”Rivmic Melodies” 17:07
    1. ”Pataphysical Introduction – Pt. 1” 1:00
    2. ”A Concise British Alphabet – Pt. 1” 0:10
    3. ”Hibou, Anemone and Bear” 5:58
    4. ”A Concise British Alphabet – Pt. 2” 0:12
    5. ”Hulloder” 0:52
    6. ”Dada Was Here” 3:25
    7. ”Thank You Pierrot Lunaire” 0:47
    8. ”Have You Ever Bean Green?” 1:23
    9. ”Pataphysical Introduction – Pt. 2” 0:50
    10. ”Out of Tunes” 2:30

Side B

  1. ”As Long as He Lies Perfectly Still” 2:30
  2. ”Dedicated to You But You Weren’t Listening” 2:30
  3. ”Esther’s Nose Job” 11:13
    1. ”Fire Engine Passing with Bells Clanging” 1:50
    2. ”Pig” 2:08
    3. ”Orange Skin Food” 1:52
    4. ”A Door Opens and Closes” 1:09
    5. ”10:30 Returns to the Bedroom” 4:14

Mike Ratledge: piano, Lowrey Holiday De Luxe organ; Hammond organ (3); harpsichord (12); flute (3 and 10) Hugh Hopper: bass guitar; acoustic guitar (12); alto saxophone (3 and 14-16) Robert Wyatt: drums, solo and backing vocals Brian Hopper: soprano and tenor saxophones.

Producer: The Soft Machine
Label: Probe

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