Soft Machine
The Soft Machine

1)

So, I'll start by saying that for the young luludia, Soft Machine had an extraordinary importance. And this beyond the specifics of music and the fabulous vividness of a budding listener.

Their importance was mainly symbolic, as they represented the most perfect paradigm of a way, let's say, quite adventurous of making music. Imaginative watchwords that then, obviously, weren't watchwords since no order is foreseen by imagination.

In other words: beautiful dreams.

And I believe that, at least for me, the unfortunate fact is due to reading a book, namely "The English Rock" by Fumagalli, Bertoncelli, Insolera.

In that book, my first rock bible, the most ardent and inspired pages were those of Bertoncelli, one endowed with a flaming tongue (those were the seventies, baby!!!) and a comprehensive look truly capable of going beyond.

Of course, he wasn't alien to some typical heaviness of the era (again, those were the seventies, baby!!!), among which stood out a visceral hatred for consumer music and, consequently, a certain snobbery in analyzing phenomena like the Beatles and Stones.

But it is also true that thanks to those heaviness, he became the dowsing seeker of the purest water. Like the Canterbury source, which he mythologized so much that I think I've spent my life searching for the records he recommended...

2)

How thrilling is this little record I hadn't listened to in years: it's the first of Soft Machine...

Then yesterday I even listened to the second one again...

So what do I do, which one do I review? Boh, let's see...in the meantime, let's start writing...

So let's see, let's see...the Soft Machine...

Well, I could start with "children of an attitude"...

Yes, yes, yes...

Then...children of an attitude capable of beautifully blending jazz pop and avant-garde, Soft Machine was, as long as the different souls of the group stayed together, a fabulous and boiling cauldron of wonders.

What did I write? The different souls of the group? Yes, I wrote that...

Ok, then I'll review the first one...

At least in the first, there was still the moody Kevin Ayers, one who had the taste for a bizarre little song like no one else and who, among other things, wrote my favorite track of theirs, namely "Why are we sleeping?". And "Why are we sleeping?" indeed is here, towards the end and he leads it with his ironic and ultra-phlegmatic baritone. It's a march with a fabulous psychedelic organ, very British voice, and an ultra-psychotic chorus. Something between avant-garde, twisted pop, and a well-executed joke...

But maybe it's better to start from the beginning...

3)

It starts with Wyatt's voice, magical in its being made of nothing, if not something that subtly cracks.

All soul intensity and jazz freedom, he sings a kind of fabulous avant-garde ballad where, perhaps, more than a voice, it's a solo instrument.

Be that as it may, it's something only Wyatt can be, whether it's a zen exercise, a self-dialogue, or simply absolute magic.

And you wish it would last forever...

Then, of course, I'm terrible at talking about music. Listen to what Wyatt's biographer says about this introduction: "a double helix of twin vocal lines that twist almost without accompaniment"---okay. Class is not just water...

And anyway, I repeat, you wish it would last forever...

And you almost feel a bit annoyed by the sudden acceleration and the organ that hits hard.

Except the beauty of the Machine is precisely being a fabulous union of opposites and everything almost transforms (and I obviously emphasize almost) into a normal rock track of the era...

Then comes a sly and lazy instrumental that gradually transforms into a sarabande closed by fantastic organ thuds.

And after the reprise of the initial song, with Wyatt singing in a crazy high register, there comes a psychotic little song...

The lyrics, for once, are worth quoting in full (since it's so short)...

"I'm about one seventy tall

I like smoking, drinking, and going wild

I have a yellow suit made by Pam

And every day I want an egg and a bit of tea

But more than anything I like talking about myself"

Damn, it sounds like Syd Barrett!!!!

But, for now, enough...

4)

Ah, the Soft were really cool. And they were also people who weren't afraid to go from the big to the small and from the small to the big.

A little song for them had about the same value as the most adventurous avant-garde. So what better than holding those two worlds together that are apparently so distant?

The important thing, as taught by master Jarry, was the art of contradiction and pataphysical rebalancing. That is, aided by a kind of science of immediacy, mixing high and low until neither of the two could recognize themselves anymore.

So then puns, pataphysical jingles, and shards of who knows what brawled with miraculous expansive escapes marked by the energy of the new rock and the taste for whim (or perhaps horror). -and, to be honest, these are notes I took yesterday for the second album, but I think they make a pretty damn good figure here too-

But as we were saying; whim/horror...

That now, to say, I'm listening to the first album, I'm about halfway through, and they've just passed, AFTER CIRCUS INTERLUDE, from Hendrixian territories (stuff really a bit unusual for them) to one of those expansive little fugues we mentioned.

And now, now that I've finished a bit laboriously scribbling the sentence above, we're at a march (another march?...yes, another march) that gradually becomes hyper-accelerated...

(these are moments taken at random, but here, wherever you take, you take well)

5)

And anyway...

And anyway...

And anyway think of the opposites that, instead of staying offended or serious, say hi to each other.

And think of a voice (Wyatt's) that thanks to a kind of soulful sweetness and enticing jazz zigzagging, lightens and smooths the moments of the craziest avant-garde.

And the other voice, that of Ayers, much lightening too, with its ironic baritone and, and...and...I can't think of another word...so be satisfied with the ironic baritone...

Think (oh god, I've already written think too many times)...

Then imagine...yes imagine waves of mischievous light fading at the same speed they arrived...

Or recall your favorite dribbler when he dodges aside...

6)

Too bad that the wonderful balance of opposites eventually broke.

And if the second album, even without Ayers, continues to offer wonders, "Third" speaks another language...

I've listened to "Third" half a time and I'll just say it's not my thing...

Except for "Moon in June", where Wyatt plays like a separated member of the band...

But "Moon in June" is another story...