Customer Reviews

British Tour 75

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

 

 

First of all, the recording quality is great. The playing is top notch. Etheridge puts on really good interpretation of the bundles songs. The musicians sound very inspired throughout the whole set. I was frustrated that there were no live recording from that period and finally i got exactly what i hoped for. The only minor complain is I don't think I will be able to sit through a 10 minute long drum solo again...
I think bundles is one of the greatest fusion albums of all times and softs is not all that bad either. There is really not much more to say about this set other than it is a must for the fans of these two albums.

This is for Softs fans of their guitar stage and this album really shows it. This album has no overdubs,feedback goes in and out of the songs and the production probably just the way it sounded as the concert did,nothings change, perfectly concent like. The thing that is odd is you got music from the Softs album that sounds undone and very different and song from Bundles that have change quite a bit like The Floating World is just a bridge to Ban-Ban Caliban or Out Of Season being faster and just electric then on Soft version.Karl Jenkins never even touches the woodwinds and this is the only album you hear Mike Rateledge and John Etheridge play together. The unreleash material is good to JVH is a great synth duet and is just full of sound. Sideburn is a 10 minute John Marshall durm showcase with shows no site of him slowing down. The grand finale in Sigh of Five with is a marvolous funk-rock driven song it features delightful callback reponse and delious band interplay worth the price. If you want some good intensive jams go for this pick.

How very typical of Soft Machine that we could have two concert recordings from the same year, with much of the same material, yet both shows are very different.

Given a choice between this October '75 show and the January one captured on "Floating World Live", many fans might choose the other simply because guitar legend Allan Holdsworth played on that one. For my money however, this show is considerably better.

Holdsworth is a blindingly fast and technically brilliant player. But with Soft Machine he seemed rather overbearing and one-dimensional. His effect on the band seemed to be to inspire the other members to compete with him, which to my mind made the music suffer. To me, the January show with Holdsworth was little more than a long string of amphetamine solos from all members, with little sympathy for the actual music.

What a difference 9 months made! On this disc, replacement guitarist John Etheridge showed that he was perfectly capable of Holdsworth-style pyrotechnics, but he chose not to do these every chance he got. Instead he exercised some artistic restraint and economy. The whole band now sounded more relaxed, and the music was allowed to breathe. There was more depth, texture and subtlety; due largely to the keyboard interplay between Mike Ratledge and Karl Jenkins.

Of course there are still solos galore. Be warned that both of the 1975 shows suffer from the interminably long drum solos of John Marshall. The guy was simply not so good or innovative to warrant this indulgence; even tolerant 70s audiences must've been checking their watches and strolling to the loo.

In my estimation BRITISH TOUR 75' is closer to the original intent of the original 67' line-up than FLOATING WORLD LIVE.While FLOATING WORLD LIVE boasts the lightning fast and dead-on chops of ALLAN HOLDSWORTH,of whom I am a big fan,it is his actual playing that makes FLOATING WORLD more of a "conventional" fusion album than anything else.Make no mistake FLOATING WORLD LIVE is an album second to none in terms of the chops it boasts:HOLDSWORTH'S six string antics wrote the book on "heavy-metal" jazz fusion;BABBINGTON on FENDER 6 playing some carefully chosen extraordinary bass lines;MARSHALL is a one-man drum line;JENKINS by this time a well respected composer as well as multifaceted musician and finally RATLEDGE'S "hold out" solo's from an era gone keeping the edge on it all.
That being said I think BRITISH TOUR 75' is much more experimental and risk-taking in nature.And after-all wasn't that what the original SOFT MACHINE was all about?.This disc sounds un-mastered with little or no over-dubs which makes for much more of a valid concert experience.It's playing is loose and exciting and while guitarist JOHN ETHERIDGE has some big shoes to fill here he opts to take the easier route by avoiding a note for note duplication of HOLDSWORTH'S solos.Instead his sinewy lines coil around JENKINS songs like they were tailor-made for each other.
In the end both albums are worth picking up since they both represent one of the few bands that were successful throughout its many incarnations.

I received today (03/16/20110. Excelent record !!! It's the Bundles's tour and while the guitar player wasn't Allan Holdsworth, John Etheridge played very well and it's a very good soft machine live record!!

what a beautifully recorded, outstanding performance show this was! i swear soft machine play like they are possessed. etheridge's guitar playing is phenominal. he plays with such precision, fluidity and speed. incredible to image seeing this show live. john marshall's drumming too is outstanding. i don't have anything bad to say about anyone performing this show. it mostly is from their "bundles" and "softs" releases. "softs" is indeed one of my favorite latter day studio recordings. i have a friend in the phillipines that constantly listens to this release and writes me on how much he enjoys it. buy the cd and enjoy it too!

First off, here's a confession or admission: these days I tend to ignore liner notes, song titles, sometimes even biographies and album descriptions. It's because I'm legally blind and reading, for me, is not impossible, but it's not exactly easy. So this is why I do not know exactly how this album relates to the same band's Floating World CD

I mean, I know that Soft Machine was started by Daevid Allen in the late 60s and that he left and they became the most revered jazz rock act in Canterbury's prog rock scene of the early to mid 70s, and that lineup changes caused the band to keep going but in name only til the early 80s. And I know that the 2 albums, based on song selection, seem to cover the tour that must have been the one that supported their studio album, Bundles.

Well the rest is conjecture on my part. I'm gonna say that this performance occurred quite a few months after the performance(s) on the Floating World cd. There are several shared songs on the discs, and on this cd, the band sounds more confident to improvise and expand on the grooves. I am not sure which versions are more true to the studio versions, though, because I have not yet purchased Bundles.

This is the better live cd, but a rabid Soft Machine enthusiast should find it worthwhile to own this cd and Floating World, or at least stream that one on the subscription sites on which it is available, This cd is not available on such sites.

Any true Softs fan would have to admit that once Elton Dean left and the guitar replaced the sax and Mike Ratledge's keyboard took a back seat they lost it big time. 'Bundles' was a poorly recorded effort more like a Alan Holdsworth solo album and 'softs' though much better didn't utilise Alan Wakeman's sax work enough. This is a reasonable recording when ex-Daryl Way's wolf guitarist John Etheridge took over and even i, who love the odd lengthy guitar solo found after a while it got on my nerves. It's like a guitar solo from start to finish (apart from a rather tedious drum solo) Mike Ratledge does one excellant organ solo and might as well not be there the rest of the time. Each song pretty much is an excuse for another guitar workout and as fine as Etheridge his 'look how fast i am' gets rather repetitive. The jazz rock excursions (this certainly isn't jazz) have the spirit of the Mahavisuna orchestra throughout without Jerry Goodman's violin to balance things out. Karl Jenkins composes just about everything and if you like his stuff fine, but i find it all rather one dimensional reliant to much on 'mood'. This isn't bad, but it is hardly essential.