Holiday Reading Dept. - The Hard Machine

Unused gatefold for triple disc retrospective

It’s generally accepted that the Softies lost the plot when they fired (his word) Robert Wyatt from his own band. They certainly lost a lot of good will from the fans who’d stayed with them through the pricklier parts of Fourth, in spite of no vocals from the man in the hand-made yellow suit. Interest perked up again when Alan Holdsworth joined for their eighth (and first non-numerically named) Bundles album, when they seemed, if not the Soft Machine we knew and loved, at least to have found a new focus and a new approachability. But the three in the middle, Fifth, Six, and Seven, remain an acquired taste, and require an ability and willingness to forget what a group called “Soft Machine” should sound like. 

For 1972’s Fifth, Phil Howard spun his sticks for three entire tracks before his busy style gave Mike Ratledge the vapors and he was invited to get his coat from the hook on the door. Nucleus drummer John Marshall slid onto the drum stool while it was still warm. Speccy and bewhiskered Hugh Hopper was playing his bass lines inside out, and Elton Dean (from whom Reg nicked his name) had been blowing out his sax with them since sixth-form common room favorite Third. If you count heads, the group is now a quartet. There’s a kind of laboratory feel to the music. Rocking out, let alone getting the funk out of their faces, is not on their agenda. It’s almost chamber jazz, but with an edge of quiet experimentation. Mike Ratledge’s signature keyboard tone, like an anteater clearing his nose of carpet fiber, is all over the place. There’s subtly atmospheric pieces and politely raucous pieces, and it’s clear that Marshall wants the job - and that’s hard to understand, given the affection for Wyatt. He’s not going to please the old fans, nor make any new, but he doesn’t seem to care. This is not jazz-rock, it’s not fusion, it’s contemporary jazz, of Weather Report standard, even Davis [Miles - Ed.] standard. No, really.

For the following years’ Six, Elt was replaced by another particle physicist, fulsomely-'tached Karl (“I’m Welsh, me”) Jenkins, also ex-Nucleus, a multi-instrumentalist whose compositional skills would change the music. They were now, officially, the least sexy band on the planet, and celebrated by commissioning a piece of cover artwork (mutant cyborg cow's udder?) that was even harder to look at than they were [swell IoF© alternative, left - Ed.]. The album, though, was a sparkling and energetic double, half studio, half live. As they were effectively recording albums live in the studio anyway, there’s little difference apart from some hushed golf applause. Some of it is reassuringly bonkers, and there’s an overall feeling of being up for it, in direct contrast to the brow-furrowingly introspective Fifth. Jenkins’ compositions tend to have an almost pop edge to them, being tightly disciplined and riff-based, but this is still very much a big fat jazz album. For every million jazzbos into Davis [Miles - Ed.], there’s maybe a hundred who know how good this music is. Rubbery bass from Hopper, aardvark wheezing from Ratledge, wiry reeds from Jenkins, and (solo apart), perfectly acceptable trap-smacking from Marshall. Also, some great Terry Riley-inspired loops. That cover can’t have helped anything, though. Even a photo of the band would have been be- But no. Perhaps not.

Seven appeared the same year. Hopper’s hopped it, alas, but Roy Babbington (ex-Nucleus - are we seeing a pattern here?) is a livelier player better suited to their newly propulsive sound. The band were on a special roll of their own. Jenkins’ riff-centric compositions act as bouncy springboards for mainly keyboard improvisation, but the themes are never forgotten for too long, and the music is muscular, concise and driven, where it’s not being delicately melodic. Ratledge reins in his squalling to good effect. There’s a feeling of the Canterbury sound to this album - it’s fun, catchy, and sometimes beautiful. More concise than Six, it’s probably the most approachable album ever to have “Soft Machine” on the label, and for me, one of their very best.

It wasn’t to last, of course. Maddened by power, the Bolshevik Jenkins took over, guitarists started plugging in and turning up to eleven and Ratledge wandered off into the mist, working in advertising, doing odd jobs, a couple of go-nowhere side projects (including, it says here, research for a British TV series on the history of facial hair), and generally leaving everyone with the feeling that he made a wrong turn somewhere. A truly original and innovative player and composer, his long absence from the music scene is one of the great headscratchers of our time.