Customer Reviews

4th & 5th

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Soft Machine's albums from THIRD (1970) through to SIX (1973) are of a transitional nature and see the band moving from psychedelia to fusion via avant garde and free form structures. 4 was originally released in February 1971 and continues where THIRD left off. It is the first Soft Machine album to be entirely instrumental. It is the last Soft Machine album to feature Robert Wyatt on drums and the first to feature Roy Babbington on bass (although he did not become an official member of the band until SEVEN). Nick Evans (trombone) and Jimmy Hastings (alto flute, bass clarinet) also reappear from the THIRD line-up, and Marc Charig (cornet) and Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone) make their debut. The standout tracks are those contributed by bassist Hugh Hopper. His four-part 'Virtually' suite originally filled Side 2 of the album (tracks 4 to 7 on this CD).

5, originally released in June 1972 continued the move towards jazz-rock. This album features Robert Wyatt's successors on drums, Phil Howard and John Marshall. Elton Dean broadens his instrumental scope to include electric piano, as well as his favoured alto saxophone and saxello. Roy Babbington appears again on Side 2 of the original album (tracks 11 to 14). Howard drums on Side 1 (tracks 8 to 10) and Marshall on Side 2 (tracks 11 to 14). Marshall's performance is an ear-opening tour-de-force and gives hints of the band's further steps towards fusion. He really makes you sit up and take notice after Howard's performance. The best compositions this time around come from the pen of Mike Ratledge, and include the beautiful 'Drop' (which features dripping water recorded excellently over the stereo picture: try it on headphones!). This was Elton Dean's final appearance with Soft Machine.

Since their release in 1971&2, 4 & 5 were my least favorite Softs, and for years I ignored them. Big mistake, but I was young. Then I found an Italian cassette compiliation with Teeth, put the tape into the car player and was blown away. I was finally ready for these demanding tunes.

Most rock/pro/prog/jazz pieces that excite the listener do so through their spontaneity and energy. Classical compositions usually achieve their effect through structure and discipline. (There are many exceptions--Robert Fripp, John Cage e.g.--and of course all music worth hearing has some of both). Teeth, though, achieves a perfect balance of form and freedom, measure and passion--partly in Ratledge's composition, partly in the superlative playing of the group. The other compositions on 4 are also _____ (does "superlative" have a superlative form?), though they tend a bit more toward order (Hopper's tunes) or free-form (Dean's). 5's also wonderful but a bit colder, anticipating the icily perfect surfaces of 6.

This review is awfully vague, but these albums are so musical that I feel like a pre-teen babbling in a Britney chat room when I try to describe them. So just buy the CD and play it a bunch so that it can get into your subconsciousness. Then dismiss my hyperbolic adolescent fawnings and put the CD in a time capsule. Listen to as much music as you can for a couple of decades. Finally, open the capsule and play Teeth. You'll see what I mean.

At times ripping deeper then most fusion jams ever dare go, the overall effects are again sometimes weighed down by the reluctant lulls of drugged out, less inspired distortionesque improv- even so, which is demonstrated with more eloquence then in future releases. With these two seminal albums fused together though, one can hardly pause from admiring the daunting collaborations each band member intuitively made in order to synchronize some of the most jazzily adept experimental rock music ever laid down. Some of it's slower(free-form) parts may alienate the melodic minded, sober listener, although it would be a crime to not own this compilation if at all one is instrumentally inclined.

This contains both Fourth and Fifth on 1 CD!!! And features all 3 Soft Machine drummers!!!(Robert Wyatt on Fourth and Phil Howard/John Marshall on 5!!!) A great package!!! A+

This collection features all of Soft Machine's 4 & 5 albums. These albums are the band's peak instramental recordings done in 70 through 72. If you are not familiar with Soft Machine, get Vol 2 first, then make sure to get 3, 4 & 5, and 6, then skip to Bundles. Great spin!

On their first three albums, the Soft Machine were one of the real gems of the psychedelic and then progressive rock scene. Whereas far too many psychedelic bands tried to make it with vocalists who were quite unsuited to the sounds which they were aiming to make, and many progressive bands could never play in such a manner as to attract attention, the Soft Machine never fell prey to any of those problems. Their music always had a deep feeling to it, and the vocals of Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers were always truly touching and at times even funny.

On Third, the band with a new lineup changed tack completely but to no less effect on three of the sides. In doing so, they provided part of the blueprint for such movements as the 1990s post-rock sound, with fierce bass work and the unique saxophone playing of Elton Dean.

However, on the second side, "Slightly All the Time", there was some suggestion that the Soft Machine could lose the plot - and on "Fourth" and "Fifth" it is no understatement to say that they did so in a more dramatic manner than could ever have been imagined. Gone is the touching drumming of Wyatt and the intense bass lines that carried so much of "Third" and in their place are sounds that could have come from almost any jazz-rock band and have utterly no emotional impact, let alone the capacity to make a listener want to listen repeatedly. Elton Dean's saxophone work is even more prominent than it was on "Slightly All the Time", but lacks the balance Hugh Hopper's fierce bass playing provided so wonderfully on "Facelift" and "Out-Bloody-Rageous".

Worse still is how the music on "Fourth" and "Fifth" seems to drift through a listener as if it were the worst kind of elevator music played with very little interruption. The saxophone sound is also so typical of the worst kind of 1970s jazz-rock as to be distinctly dated.

All up, this is a case of a band seemingly losing everything in one step, just as Third Ear Band did around the same time with the MacBeth soundtrack. Stick with their first three albums.