j o n b

If you thought that Yes was the first band to produce a bloated double album four track prog epic (in 1973), think again! Three years earlier, Soft Machine tried the same thing with Third. Two LPs worth of jazz influenced Canterbury prog, without a whole lot of reward in the end. Things get off to rough start, as the first cut is a live one, and all improvised from what I've read. It shows, frankly, as the track wanders through moments of pure noise and poor musical development, with a few nice moments here and there. I should go ahead and say right here that, generally, pure imrpov does little for me, and this track isn't going to change that opinion. The other three tracks are studio cuts, each one gradually getting better. "Moon In June" is the only cut that is not purely instrumental, with some of Robert Wyatt's trademark vocals adding some spice to the mix. All in all, however, the tracks seem to wander here and there without any real structure or development, leaving nothing imprinted on the memory. "Out-Bloody-Rageous" is by far the best track on the disc, once you get past the repetition intro and outro. It seems to be the most thought out track, and it shows, with some great instrumental work throughout. If the other tracks were more like this one in structure, the album would benefit as a whole. All in all, I would have to call this disc a disappointment, particularly as I have heard it called Soft Machine's best work. No doubt those who are heavily into the iprov-flavored Canterbury scene will want to give it a try, and may come to love it. Too much aimless musical wandering for my tastes, tho'. review by Jon Byrne — undated —

b o b

Like a couple of the other reviewers, I picked this album up after seeing it praised by on-line prog fans and ended up being a little disappointed with it. The poor sound quality (this is possibly the worst sounding major label album I've ever heard) certainly didn't help. But every now and then I'd put it on to see if it had grown on me, and eventually I found that it had. In fact, despite the poor sound, I'd say that three of the four tracks from this album deserve the classic status they've been given. With four close-to-twenty-minute-long tracks, three of which are entirely instrumental, it's hard to come up with a brief review that is still informative. So instead I'm going to listen to the album and try to describe each track as it plays: "Facelift" - Opens with a loooong, deep, menacing organ note over which other keyboard lines build into a chaotic patchwork of sound. After about four minutes of this, the other instruments (bass, sax, clarinet) start to creep into the mix. Around the five minute mark, there's an audible edit (this track was constructed from two different live shows) and the song switches to a more structured section. This part sounds more like the jazz-based prog that Canterbury bands are known for. Near the track's midpoint, there are a couple edits as other melodies are faded in and out. A flute solo over another long organ note follows, then at the thirteen minute mark the band goes back into jazz. At one point, it sounds like recordings from both concerts are playing at the same time. The track ends with a repetition of the composed bit from five minutes into the track, which shifts into some backward masking and finally fades away. "Slightly All the Time" - Starts off with the bass sounding like it's randomly bouncing between a handful of notes, creating a catchy bass line. The drums soon join in, and then the horns state the main melody. After that there's a lengthy section of sax solos backed up by bass, drums and organ. Just before the six minute mark, the track doubles its pace and then goes into a flute solo. It calms back down a couple minutes later and goes into a keyboard and sax dominated section which builds up into a ripping organ solo. Next, the song slows down and gets a little atmospheric, with swelling guitar (or is that a keyboard?) notes floating behind a smoky sax solo. During the last couple minutes the song accelerates to high speed, finally ending with a restatement of the horn theme from the beginning, this time joined by heavily distorted organ. "Moon in June" - I've seen people single this out as the best song on the album, but it's my least favorite. This is mostly because I'm not a big fan of Robert Wyatt's vocals, which cover the first half of this track. The music behind the vocal parts seems to wander around with no destination in mind - it's a little too scattershot for me. About mid-way through the track, they finally launch into some jazzy instrumental music. Over the course of the next several minutes, the bass, drums and keyboards really shine. There are some more vocals from Wyatt, but it's mostly just wordless melodies. Towards the end, the music breaks down into some very experimental sounding stuff with long reverberating notes and squeaky keyboard noises. The track finally ends with some clanging sounds just past the nineteen minute mark. "Out-Bloody-Rageous" - Far and away my favorite track, largely due to the wonderful looped keyboard (or is it guitar?) sounds at the beginning and end. These are built up, layer by layer into an undulating wall of sound. After this opening, the piano and bass pick up the looped melody and launch into a fairly straightforward jazz number. An impressive organ solo covers the next several minutes, until the horn section kicks in about half way through the track. This gives way to a brief reappearance of the wall of keyboard loops, which fades into a section of piano working variations on the loop theme. After that, the horns get to solo for a few minutes, eventually being joined by the piano and bass for a final restatement of the main theme before the loops return and gracefully sweep the song along its last few minutes to the album's end. If I had to make a comparison, I'd say most of this album reminds me of the early Mothers of Invention, particularly when they'd play long, jazzy tracks with lots of soloing (such as "King Kong"). There are also a couple bits here and there that remind me of Gong. Overall, if you're into the jazzier end of prog, and poor sound quality doesn't put you off, then this disc is well worth picking up. It works well as background music, but you can also dig in and analyze the tracks for hours on end. If nothing else, you should get it just for "Out-Bloody-Rageous", one of the best epic-length tracks the prog movement ever churned out. review by Bob Eichler — undated —

j o e

A recognized prog rock landmark, Third is pretty much to Soft Machine what Wish You Were Here was to Pink Floyd. This release marks the apex of balance between each member's contributions (except perhaps free-jazzer Elton Dean on sax) in a way that would not return later in the bands career. This one track-per-side double album hit the stores several years before Yes' Topographic Oceans, with music conveying a range of differing qualities. Hugh Hopper's "Facelift," an intensely dark composition with sections recorded live, at times recalls "Starless"-era Crimson, whereas Mike Ratledge's "Slightly All the Time" is a bit brighter. However, the best is yet to come: "Moon in June" and "Out-Bloody-Rageous" would both alone make Third well worth the price. The former carries Robert Wyatt's whimsical lyrics between unpredictably shifting major and minor keys before shifting into a jazzy blast-off, and the latter is a Terry Riley-drenched (read: loops loops loops) mindblower. The sound quality is marginal (unfortunately, I believe this goes back to the actual recording) but Third is the ultimate Soft Machine release. review by Joe McGlinchey — undated —

m a t t

Few bands with as prolific a history are identified so strongly with a single album, but that is the case with Soft Machine and their 1970 double-LP, Third. The reasons for this are largely commercial — Third was the band's major-label debut and it easily was their best-selling album. Additionally, it is the only one of Soft Machine's five releases for Columbia that the label released on CD in North America (the other four were pressed for a time in the 1990s by the now-defunct American independent One Way). The practical consequences of this are that, for many people, Third was their first exposure to Soft Machine. This may not be a task to which it is particularly suited, though it is my opinion that the album is mostly great. Complex, obtuse, stretched out (the album is comprised of four songs, each about 19 minutes long) and with sound quality that ranges from passable to inadequate, I can appreciate how some people might have gotten worn out by it before the effort paid any dividends. Once you're attuned to it, however, Third is an album that can completely absorb your attention, even after many dozens of spins. Third captures Soft Machine in early 1970, a few months after Elton Dean became a full-time member. While the progress of most bands can be more or less measured by their studio albums, Soft Machine's really cannot; at least, not until around 1972. Before 1972, the band's changes greatly outnumbered their albums. A steady stream of live material has since been released that more properly tracks the group's evolution between 1969 and 1971, filling many important gaps. At the heart of most of these performances are the pieces that were included on the band's third album; pieces which I think have rightly gone on to be considered classics. Third is the first of Soft Machine's fusion albums (and given its early 1970 recording, this would make Third one of the pioneering records of the genre) but its four songs are tighter and more composed than the jazz-rock experiments that were then being conducted in America by Miles Davis and Tony Williams. On the other hand, the music is more flexible than the stiff brand of British fusion that would emanate from the Canterbury scene toward the middle of the 1970s. With Third, I think that Soft Machine struck a special balance insofar as writing pieces with complex themes (that nevertheless were quite catchy, once given the chance to sink in), yet which were malleable enough to withstand makeover after makeover as these adventurous musicians kept reinventing them on stage. Such is the crux, however, when giving Third a fair evaluation in the 21st century. Ever since it finally clicked with me number of years ago, I've considered Third to be a great one (though the messy, lo-fi recording of "Facelift" never completely won me over). But with all of the superlative Third-era live material that has subsequently been released, only the most devoted of Third fanatics could argue that its value hasn't become diluted. My favorite renditions of three of the album's four tracks can now be found elswhere and "Moon in June" may only be spared this fate because it doesn't appear on many of the archival releases. When pared down for concert performances, "Slightly All The Time" and "Out-Bloody-Rageous" gained a sharpness that the more strung-out studio versions lack. In the case of "Facelift," the improvements are more than merely cosmetic — the tentative, staid manner in which the horns lay down the main theme gives no hint at all as to how powerful this piece could be. Compared with the killer "Facelift" performances on Grides and Virtually, this one (which, unlike the rest of the album, is not a studio recording but a grafting of two January, 1970 live performances) really plods and is done no favors by the murky sound. Despite all of that, I think that a good case can be made for Third still holding up because it has an atmosphere that you don't get at all when the songs performed in other contexts. Whether it's the extended keyboard intros or the longer middle sections or just a few more repetitions of the themes, Third has a gently swirling, psychedelic character that is unique to it; it's the ultimate Soft Machine head-trip. And don't just take my word for it — check out the photo of the band in the CD insert (a great subject for an essay contest would be to describe what Elton Dean was seeing at that exact moment). While it's probably true that the drones and repetition are products of the band padding their pieces to fill the two-LP running time, the cumulative effect is hypnotic music tied together by a consistent aesthetic that really works and not a minute of it strikes me as superfluous. In this respect, it works like Miles Davis' In A Silent Way. One of the true landmarks of both progressive rock and jazz-rock fusion, I believe that Soft Machine's Third is an album that can yield great rewards if given the chance. review by Matt P. — 11-10-06 —

e r i c

I bought this based on the high praise it received on prog.net, and I had never even heard anything from them prior to this. "Facelift" opens up as a very spacey, noise track with the organ and horns. The band comes in about 5 minutes into the track basically led by the horns, and then it gets a bit heavier. It reminds me alot of early Crimson in sound with the sax going crazy. It gets very jazzy at times, and this track was recorded live according to the CD booklet. "Slightly All The Time" again is jazzy with the horns getting good use throughout, again kind of a laid back, and to my ears a traditional jazz sounding track, more so than prog or rock. "Moon in June" starts out with organ and some vocals, a bit darker sounding than the previous tracks, and less jazzy. I believe this is Robert Wyatt singing, and I am not fond of his voice here, and it is very low in the mix. The song actually sounds a bit amateurish to me at times. "Out-Bloody-Rageous" opens with a long spacey organ, very psychedelic in sound and then moves back into the jazz realm, with more of a kick to it than the others. This is my favorite track on the CD, and I think shows the band at their best here, combining all the elements of their style the most consistently. I realize that my view differs from the others out there, but I based it on the fact that I really do not see myself going back to listen to this often, and it did not make a big impact on me. If I want some jazz, I would rather go to Miles or one of the masters. The fact that this was done in 1970 may make it more influential than I give it credit for in the progressive movement and might be better classified as Avant-Garde than jazz though the jazz influence is most obvious. Overall, if this is considered their best work, I will not need to go further into their catalogue. review by Eric Porter — undated —