Newly-remastered footage of pioneering British psych outfit Soft Machine is headed for release as Facelift France and Holland. The three-CD/DVD set will arrive on March 25th via Cuneiform Records and showcases the earliest known footage of the 1960s Canterbury group. After emerging as forefathers of the 60’s psychedelic movement across the pond in 1966—sharing the stage with Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and more—Soft Machine reached the dawn of a new decade in 1970. The band moved toward a more eclectic jazz-rock sound and also scaled back personnel to a modest quintet of Mike Ratledge (keyboards, flute), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Hugh Hopper (bass, guitar, alto sax), and Elton Dean (alto saxophone, saxello, flute, keyboards), with contributions from Lyn Dobson (soprano saxophone, flute, harmonica, vocals). With this lineup—which would last from January to March 1970—the band performed at Paris’ Théâtre de la Musique on March 2nd, footage of which comprises the meat of the release.

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the long overdue release of the re-mastered edition of the classic 1976 album 'Softs' by the celebrated Jazz and Rock group Soft Machine. The album was the band s second for EMI s Harvest label and featured a line-up of Mike Ratledge (keyboards), Karl Jenkins (Oboe, Piano, Soprano Sax), John Marshall (Drums), Roy Babbington (Bass) and new member John Etheridge (Guitar), along with Saxophonist Alan Wakeman. An accessible collection featuring John Etheridge s considerable guitar playing talents and would also be the final album to feature founder member Mike Ratledge. Unavailable on CD for nearly 15 years, this reissue has been re-mastered from the original tapes and fully restores the original artwork.

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the long overdue release of the re-mastered edition of the classic 1975 album Bundles by the celebrated Jazz and Rock group Soft Machine. The album was the band s first for EMI's Harvest label and featured a line-up of Mike Ratledge (keyboards), Karl Jenkins (Oboe, Piano, Soprano Sax), John Marshall (Drums), Roy Babbington (Bass) and new member Allan Holdsworth (Guitar). An accessible collection, Bundles featured Holdsworth’s considerable guitar playing talents and opened a new chapter for the band, and attracted much praise upon release. Unavailable on CD for nearly 15 years, this Esoteric Recordings reissue has been re-mastered from the original tapes and fully restores the original artwork.

Fourth is the fourth studio album by the rock band Soft Machine, released in 1971. The album is also titled Four or 4 in the USA. This was the group's first all-instrumental album, although their previous album Third had almost completed the band's move in this direction toward instrumental jazz, and a complete abandonment of their original self-presentation as a psychedelic and progressive rock group. It was also the last of their albums to include drummer and founding member Robert Wyatt who afterwards left. Like the previous Soft Machine album, some tracks have the band augmented by additional musicians. These include Mark Charig and Nick Evans, who had been in the septet lineup of late 1969, and Roy Babbington, who would join the band in 1973.

Third is a live and studio album by the English rock band Soft Machine, released as their third overall in June 1970 by CBS Records. It is a double album with a single composition on each of the four sides, and was the first of two albums recorded with a four-piece line-up of keyboardist Mike Ratledge, drummer and vocalist Robert Wyatt, saxophonist Elton Dean, and bass guitarist Hugh Hopper. Third marks a shift in the group's sound from their psychedelic origins towards jazz rock and electronic music. "Facelift" is a live recording by the previous line-up of the band, a five-piece with Lyn Dobson on saxophone and flute alongside Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper and Dean. The remaining tracks are studio recordings by the four-piece line-up, augmented by a few session musicians. Jimmy Hastings (brother of Pye Hastings from Caravan) makes substantial contributions on flute and clarinet on "Slightly All the Time", free-jazz violinist Rab Spall (then a bandmate of Wyatt's in the part-time ensemble Amazing Band) is heard on the coda to "Moon in June", and Nick Evans (who had been a member of Soft Machine during late 1969 when they spent a short time as a seven-piece band) makes brief appearances on trombone in "Slightly All the Time" and "Out-Bloody-Rageous".

OFT MACHINE 'FLOATING WORLD LIVE' notes by Sid Smith An indispensable record of a band at the top of their game…
The arrival of guitarist Alan Holdsworth into the ranks of Soft Machine in December 1973 marked a significant change in tone and style for the venerable jazz-rock institution. Having started out as an experimental pop group in the mid-1960s, Soft Machine had undergone several changes not only in its personnel but in its music. By the early 1970s albums such as Third, Fourth, boasting long-form compositions in complex and adventurous arrangements, secured their reputation as the UK’s leading jazz-rock performers.

In 1971 the ever-evolving Soft Machine entered yet another period of transition following the departure of one of their founding members, drummer Robert Wyatt five months after the release of their Fourth album in February 1971. His replacement was Phil Howard, who had come to the UK along with a wave of other top-drawer players from Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s and was part of Elton Dean’s group, Just Us. Whilst this decision may have been born out of necessity, Howard's arrival was a boost to Dean’s desire to move to a looser mode of expression, something he'd been doing since Fletcher’s Blemish (from Soft Machine’s Fourth) and their live blow-out, Neo Caliban Grides, which had been opening live shows of the day to startling effect.

A remastered 2CD edition of the 1975 album ‘Bundles’ by the celebrated Jazz/Progressive group Soft Machine. The album was the band’s first for EMI’s Harvest and featured a line-up of Mike Ratledge (keyboards), Karl Jenkins (oboe, piano, soprano sax), John Marshall (drums), Roy Babbington (bass) and Allan Holdsworth (guitar).

2010 five CD box set containing a quintet of albums from the British Art-Rockers. Box includes Soft Machine Third, Fourth, Fifth, Six & Seven.

While the two sets from the second night (February 28, 1971) have been released before, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THAT THE ENTIRE TWO-NIGHT STAND HAS BEEN RELEASED. So half of this is previously completely unreleased.

Soft Machine are an English rock and jazz band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966, named after the novel The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs.Australian poet, guitarist, singer, composer and performance artist Daevid Allen moved to Paris in 1960. Inspired by the emerging 'Beat Generation' of writer's works he'd discovered whilst working in a Melbourne bookshop he moved into a room in Paris's 'Beat Hotel' and spent time around the city's Latin Quarter. There, he rubbed shoulders with Terry Riley and William S. Burroughs, gaining free access to the area's jazz clubs. Influenced by the music philosophies of Sun Ra he formed the Daevid Allen Trio, a free-jazz outfit which performed in Burroughs' theatre pieces based on that writer's novel 'The Ticket That Exploded'.In 1961 Allen travelled to Canterbury, England, where he met 16 year-old Robert Wyatt (who was the son of his landlord). Their mutual interest in jazz resulted in a few gigs, in London in 1963, as the Daevid Allen Trio (with Hugh Hopper on bass and Mike Ratledge occasionally guesting on piano). Around the same time, Wyatt formed the Wilde Flowers with the Hopper brothers, Hugh and Brian Hopper, with Kevin Ayers on vocals.

Five years after the release of their last studio album, legendary UK musical institution, Soft Machine, return with a brand new CD/LP, Other Doors. Boasting new material and two numbers drawn from their extensive historical repertoire, Other Doors finds the band on their usual fiery form.

Recorded live in Breda, Netherlands in January of 1970, this double LP represents the only existing recording of a very rare and short-lived quintet version of the band. Sax/ flute player Lyn Dobson was the fifth member here, left over from the band’s days as a septet. Just three months later Dobson would move on, leaving the classic Ratledge-Dean-Hopper-Wyatt line-up in place. Dobson’s contributions to a 22-minute long version of Hopper’s “Facelift” as well as “Backwards” are of particular interest here, as is a tentative version of “Out-Bloody-Rageous”, which was still a work in progress at this stage.

Soft Machine est un groupe anglais emblématique du rock progressif des années soixante et soixante-dix. Il a enregistré trois chefs d’œuvre du genre (Volume 1 à Third). Évoluant au fil de sa carrière d’un rock inventif à un jazz-rock plus banal, Soft Machine a abrité au fil de son évolution parmi les musiciens les plus renommés du style, de Daevid Allen à Kevin Ayers, en passant par Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, et Elton Dean. L’essaimage de tous ces talents a alimenté plusieurs générations de groupes européens.

The band name says it all. Three members of this quartet worked at different times in the original Soft Machine (John Etheridge, Hugh Hopper, John Marshall) whilst the fourth (Theo Travis) has assumed the mantle once taken by the late and lamented musician, Elton Dean. They've come up with a program of music that pulls off the not inconsiderable feat of acknowledging the legacy at the same time as it forges ahead in new and distinct ways. The world would be a far more interesting place if more musicians operated on a similar level. Overall this a vibrant, adventurous fusion and free form jazz outing; it stands up well to the band's illustrious history and ought to be on any Soft fan's collection.