Customer Reviews

Vol. Two

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

How come, so many people don't know about Robert Wyatt, while the few who know his music are sure that the man is the best? A question with no answer. There's a time when every word is a word too far and every educated review seems to be empty and boring. So let me tell you this: the best album i have ever had; A perfect progresive rock creation that sounds so unique, so brilliant and so light even to those who don't like particulary the long-complicated items; If there is something like "perfect" in art, "Soft Machine 2" would probably get its recognition but in the far future. In the days of Hip-Hop, Shmip-Mop and Tip-top, such albums don't have any chance. ...

Third was their most popular (and most promoted), but Volume Two was their best.

Not suitable for Rate a Record on American Bandstand.

I'll never get tired of it.

Volume Two is Soft Machine's second album, released on the Probe label (distributed by ABC in America), and to me, the music is clearly an improvement on their debut! Kevin Ayers had left, with Hugh Hopper replacing him. This is perhaps one of the finest albums I have ever heard from 1969. Mike Ratledge provides us some great organ and piano work, and of course Robert Wyatt providing great drum work and some rather clever lyrics. This album really demonstrates the jazz background of these guys, and how they were able to show those influence in a psychedelic/early prog rock setting. This is a collection of mainly short pieces, some of them experimental, some of them proper "songs", plus Robert Wyatt reciting the British alphabet (that is, Z is "Zed"), and then doing it in reverse shortly after. There are the occasional experimental passage that gets me thinking of Krautrock groups, like early Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, or Amon Duul II at their most experimental. Some of those jazzy pieces show you where the band would be headed for their Third album. Trying to pick out a highlight on this album is really difficult for me, for so many reasons, since the music changes rather fast. The great thing is the band never bores the listener for a moment here. To think that this came out a few months before King Crimson gave us In the Court of the Crimson King, this album really deserves mention as one of the albums that help start progressive rock in the first place. This is truly one of the highlights of the Canterbury scene, as far as I'm concerned. Certainly Third is thought of as their artistic high point, but you never want to miss Volume Two as you're really missing out on some great stuff, this album is totally essential!

I've never heard anything before or since that sounds like Soft Machine's Volume Two. It's quite different from the rest of their work, but it is their best. I also believe this is Robert Wyatt's finest hour, his singing, writing and drumming are just phenomenal. You've never heard lyrics like these either, by the way. Just a staggering release, with many classics. "As Long as He Lies Perfectly Still" and "Dedicated to You but You Weren't Listening" are simply masterpieces. Whew! Get this now before it goes out of print!

The Soft Machine was/remains so underground as to have been unearthed by only those most able to dig. I had never heard of them myself until I accidentally saw them in concert.

My best friend and I, together with his older brother who had a car, bought tickets to see the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968 - for $3.50! - and this band that none of us had ever heard of before came on stage first.

My tiny little mind was so blown that I was down at Stan's record shop the very next day looking for anything by the Soft Machine.

What I found was Volume Two.

Unlike anything I have ever heard before or since, this album remains one of my favorites nearly fourty years later. To say that the music is 'otherworldly' seems insufficient; an alternate reality hits closer to the mark.

Unlike the other reviewers whose critiques I have read on this page, I don't know the band's members or history or how to catagorize their style; I just know what I like and I like this album a LOT!

I can't believe nobody else has taken a moment to comment on this masterpiece of British rock. Must be because people who like this type of stuff don't shop on-line. You're in for stunning melodies and boffo musicianship. I won't bore you with any more gushing praise; just buy the damn thing!

Sophisticated and allusive (references to Schoenberg, Jarry, Pynchon, the old standard "These Foolish Things," and the band's own history), Two remains a unique hallmark. Not even the best progressive groups of the time (e.g. Caravan, King Crimson) nor the recent rediscoverers of the genre (not to mention the dreck that passes for alternative) have achieved the subtle textures, rhythms, and structures that Ratledge, Wyatt, and Hopper bring forth.

Even Soft Machine One and 3-7+ don't sound like this. Vol. 2 showcases Wyatt's best drumming and vocals(which is to say some of the subtlest in rock), several of Ratledge's best riffs, and a superlative Hopper composition, "Dedicated to you ..." (with its off-kilter melody and wonderful reflective lines like "Famous parabolic versions/ Songs that promise:/ Beauty, sleep, love, sadness").

Forget your preconceptions of 70's prog rock and enjoy this one-of-a-kind achievement.

This is it; the album I would take to a desert island. I've listened to this thing a million times since the day I bought the vinyl some 40 years ago. It literally changed my life. Dada music for the late 20th century; the band and the album that foreshadowed everything that was to come. They are to music -- what Tzara was to poetry and Duchamp was to art.

I searched for this album on seedy for a long time before I finally found it. I've read the other reviews and learned a great deal I hadn't known about the band and their history. Now I know why they're a "good" band and why their music is "good" music.

Previously, besides the fact that this album has always knocked my socks off, all I had known about the Soft Machine in general were these three things:

1. That the Soft Machine was the warm-up band for the Jimi Hendrix Experience at a concert I attended with my best friend in 1969 - the tickets were $3.50 apiece.

2. The next morning I was in Stan's Record Shop and it wasn't a Jimi Hendrix record I was looking for; I was ready to buy anything by the Soft Machine but lucked out and scored Volume Two - as though Fortuna Herself had intervened, this was the same music I had heard performed live the previous evening.

3. Since that time I have heard most or all of the group's other endeavors and haven't liked any of them very much; this one I like a lot.

The five-star rating reflects how much I like this suite of music as a whole - it does not, in any way, reflect how "good" or "bad" the music is.

Fortunately, the seedy retains all of the original music in the order in which it was originally presented and my ignorance of the band members' names, dates-of-birth or number of ex-wives has in no way interfered with my having enjoyed untold hours of listening to the olde vinyl or new optical albums in their entirety, which is how I best enjoy it.

4 Mice Elf, I like it.

Soft Machine's Vol Two was concieved after their touring with Hendrix in 1968. This record influenced many musicians of the time. Without it, we would have never heard bands like Gentle Giant, Henry Cow, Area, as these were all influenced by this record! The band is tight and it is accessable by today's standard. It would have been very odd to a pre Sargent Pepper listener. Great playing and tight writing with unique and chaotic melodies with power punctuation. Awesome spin!