Soft Machine trailer for new 1970 live album released

(Image credit: Cuneiform Records)

Rare footage of Canterbury legends Soft Machine performing as a quintet has surfaced in a new trailer for an upcoming three-disc CD and DVD set, Facelift France And Holland, which will be released by Cuneiform records on March 25. You can watch the new trailer for the release below.

The set captures the short-lived quintet line-up of Mike Ratledge (organ), Robert Wyatt (drums), Hugh Hopper (bass), Elton Dean (alto sax, saxello) and Lyn Dobson (soprano and tenor sax, flute, harmonica, vocals) in the first quartet of 1970, just prior to the recording of their Third album.

The footage was original broadcast on French TV programme Pop 2, showing the band performing at Paris's Theatre de la Musique, and is thought to be the earliest known footage of the band to be commercially released and the only known footage of the quintet line-up, which existed between January and March of 1970.

The set also features a previously unreleased performance from January 1970 from Amsterdam's Concertgebouw.

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.