Soft Machine

Alive In Paris 1970 [DVD]

Label: Voiceprint Country: UK

"This DVD captures the Canterbury Sound legends Soft Machine live in France filmed at a concert for French television in 1970. The line up of the band at the time of this concert included, Mike Ratledge, Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and Lyn Dobson. The concert took place on the 2nd of March 1970 at the Theatre de la Musique in Paris. This rare footage has only recently been rediscovered and as such is a rare insight into one of the classic British genre defining bands of the sixties and seventies captured at their creative height. Tracks include Out-Bloody-Rageous, Eamonn Andrews, Facelift and Esther's Nose Job. Filmed in superb clear quality this DVD will be eagerly anticipated by the fan base of this uniquely British band.

Soft Machine grew out of a meeting between two former members of the legendary Canterbury band The Wilde Flowers (Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers) An Australian beatnik (Daevid Allen) and an Oxford University student (Mike Ratledge) in 1966. Once the band had got together courtesy of a financial benefactor who agreed to finance the band they contacted William Burroughs to ask his permission to use the name The Soft Machine. Burroughs agreed and the band was in business. Along with other bands including Pink Floyd Soft Machine were at the vanguard of the new London Underground music scene and regularly played gigs at celebrated clubs like UFO and more famously at the launch of the International Times magazine at the Roundhouse. The band were signed to Polydor records and recorded a single which featured a track called Feelin'Reelin' Squeelin' which featured the talents of Jimi Hendrix who was a Soft Machine fan. The single however was unrepresentative of the bands sound, which leaned heavily on free form improvisation. Following a gig in St. Tropez the band returned to England however Daevid Allen was refused entry to the country due to visa problems and the band were forced to carry on as a trio. Allen stayed in France and went on to form Gong while the remaining members of Soft Machine went on to tour America supporting Jimi Hendrix where during a short break in the tour the band recorded their debut album which was released by Probe records in America. Following the tour Kevin Ayers left the band and took up residence in Ibiza.

The band recruited Hugh Hopper as their new bassist and made another album entitled Soft Machine 2. By the time of the bands third and fourth albums (Soft Machine Third and Soft Machine Fourth) the band had moved into a jazz-fusion direction."-Voiceprint