Canterbury legends Soft Machine are to have their most creative period celebrated with a massive 17-disc box set, Slightly All The Time Recordings 1970-1974, released through Sony Music on October 30.
Spread across a mammoth 14 CDs and three Blu-rays, the set collects the five albums the band recorded for Columbia Records between 1970 and 1973 - Third (1970), Fourth (1971), Fifth (1972) and Sixth (1973) - all newly remastered from the original ¼” tapes. It also includes all of their extant BBC sessions (half of which are unreleased) and a generous selection of rare and previously unavailable concert recordings from Europe (UK/France/Switzerland), as well as a book featuring brand-new liner notes from Prog writer Sid Smith.
Compiler Mark Powell, head honcho of Esoteric Recordings, has also unearthed an entirely different set of recordings of Fifth, as well as over six hours of superb audio-visual material gathered from European TV broadcast archives, almost all of which has never been issued before, such as Paris 1970, Brussels 1971, the complete Berliner Jazztage performance and the BBC TV appearances on An Anatomy Of Pop and Full House.
The band have shared a video of them performing Virtually Parts 1-3 (from 1971's Fourth) from Beat Club in 1971, which you can watch below.
Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, a peer of the band back in the late 60s and early 70s, and who also produced drummer Robert Wyatt's second solo album, 1974's Rock Bottom, commented, "If there really was a UFO Club house band, it was a title shared between The Soft Machine and (the) Pink Floyd. Even though the musical influences could not have been more different, I tend to think that the one ingredient that both bands were unique in providing was playing music that was simply impossible to dance to.
"I don't think there was any rivalry between us. I think we probably huddled together for comfort as Northern Soul music and the Top Rank ballrooms topped the bill. We did become friends, and I have happy memories of spending time - I think in the Chelsea Hotel, or Max’s Kansas City in NYC – waiting to head out to attempt to conquer the American mid-west. And in later years I had the privilege of producing Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom album as well as appearing on Top Of The Pops with Andy Summers in pre-Police mode as a fill-in guitar player to accompany Robert.
"Although Pink Floyd were to head down a very different musical path in the years to come, I do clearly remember being deeply impressed by the musicianship of Soft Machine. That modern jazz influence was something I could only wonder at and certainly couldn’t emulate! I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with some happy memories as well as good music."
Pre-order Slightly All The Time Recordings 1970-1974.
