ALIVE & WELL - RECORDED IN PARIS

Soft Machine decided to record this one as a live album in order to save costs, the band's declining fortunes having started to bite into their budget severely. Unfortunately, the live tapes weren't of a brilliant standard, so extensive overdubs were required anyway.

Some may argue that they needn't have bothered - far from proving that the band were alive and well, the album documented a group barely interested in being Soft Machine any more, and divided as to what direction they actually want to go in. At points Karl Jenkins' synths dominate and things drift in an almost Tangerine Dream direction; at other points, as on The Nodder, the band do an passable impression of the classic Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Still, at least it doesn't have the spectacle of Mike Ratledge acting as a guest performer in his own band, and if the Harvest era of the band appeals to you then this isn't without its charms. For a good long while the easiest to find CD version of this was a lacklustre 1990 version from See For Miles, which didn't sound especially good; however, in 2010 Estoeric put out a remastered version (also included, minus bonus tracks, on their Harvest Years boxed set of Soft Machine's 1975-1978 albums) which notably improves the sound quality, and has somewhat warmed me to this release.