Matching Mole
Matching Mole

THE REVIEW

When Mr. Wyatt left the Soft Machine, he decided to form a new little band together with David Sinclair from Caravan and a couple of other fine fellows.

The group's name is a pun based on the translation of "soft machine" into French: "machine molle". Some people just don't know what to come up with anymore. "O Caroline" opens the album: a not terribly original ballad, but one that redeems itself with an excellent melody, a humble and sincere flute and piano, and the beautiful voice of the beard. It's the catchy-song-that-stays-in-your-head, a song that every good album possesses. After "Instant Pussy", a dissonant, lethargic track full of those disoriented vocalizations typical of Wyatt, there is "Signed Curtain", whose lyrics simply state the part of the song being played at that moment: "this is the first verse... and this is the chorus, or maybe it's the bridge...". It would be a simple meta-musical divertissement if the melody and piano arrangement weren't magnificent. The problem lies in the fact that the second half of the album features well-structured tracks that are overall quite enjoyable, especially after consuming strange stamps with a drawing of Buddha on them, but not exactly essential or memorable.
Following the cunning and troubling acrimony of the stentorian "Part Of The Dance", in fact, tracks develop that are not exactly pedestrian or boring, but definitely flounder in wavering dissonances.

So four stars! There!