THE STORY OF SOFT MACHINE

What can I say....apart from....pretty dreadful. And less of the pretty. I am fairly new to Soft Machine and maybe I bought a bad compilation, but this is predominantly painful. I normally love painful: the worst bits of Van Der Graaf I can handle(their best bits are heaven), and Dream Theater 's more mindless meanderings etc. But this is hard to take.

The sound quality of the first CD is horrific-what on earth was going on here(did my mum record the guys on her portable cassette deck during secret trips to Kent? Not only that, she must have miked up in the loo).

There are a few good melodies trying to feel their way through the dross but they are fighting a losing battle. It's generally laid back jazz/rock prog if that helps anyone.The most intersting bits, when sound quality improves, are when the guys go solo(Wyatt's moanings are generally not that enticing but 'Short break' is fairly nice and mesmerising ). The stuff from Daevid Allen/Hopper/Pyle is the best on these discs+ the Hopper/Lisa Klossner 3 tracks are reasonable.

However, this Soft Machine cd leaves me demanding more wine to try and fathom out some morsel of purpose for it's production.