last good soft machine album?

2!!!!!

that is my contrarian but sincere opinion. i used to have the first four, and i probably miss the 4th more than the 3rd.

i dunno, i guess the first four are "good" but 2 is the last great one.

i really like "the soft weed factor" but i found sixth somewhat overly tentative on the whole. i like the great wobbly organ noises on fourth and fifth but in general thought they were very very boring compared to the 2nd side of third. i listened a bit to seventh tonight though and i thought it was mindblowing, so now i'm really confused.

1 > Jet Propelled Photographs > 3 > 2 > 4 > my interest in exploring any further

0

'third'

reminds me of 45:33.

Side one of 5 with Phil Howard on drums.

Studio tracks on "Six" are well worth checking out - honestly, if some German group had done them, there'd probably be about three threads on that album. The live tracks are boring however. Can't remember anything about the 7th album, tho I've got it somewhere. Never heard any subsequent albums.

holy shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecma6vrB3rI

lol geir

haha. weird. they're totally melodic prog

dope. that's from 1978???

xp too much rhythm and dissonance iirc

xp ya, but 'i feel love' was from 77, so....

haha i never realised they got to the point of being one of those bands with no one from the original lineup at all though

that track is great, thanks jaxon!

hahahahahaha wow that is fucking swell

man I found a copy of 7 on vinyl in near-mint for easy money, I've always heard it's diminishing returns after 4 so I'd never heard it but I thought why not give it a try...what the hell y'all. this is, for the most part, outstanding stuff. there's a couple of tracks where they miss the mark and just sound kinda leaden, but otherwise this is so good....dreamy, spacey, really stoney in the very best sense. they barely try to get all "out" any more in an aggressive way so maybe ppl miss that? but this record is really really good imo

Yeah, I also don't get why people underrate the later albums. I like them all.

LOVE "Carol Ann" from 7 - reminds me of Coltrane's ballads.

I have this guy and I enjoy it thoroughly.

"hazard profile" is not bad, though i loathe holdsworth's guitar playing style.

xp that looks like a great place to start with this stuff, thanks

Oh yeah 7 is great, especially "Penny Hitch"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv_h6T5vRwA

I played Bundles and Softs a few years ago and was kind of surprised to find them enjoyable (esp Bundles), though no match for 7. The fact that I haven't gone back to them may say something, though.

I think if I think of them more as Nucleus under a different name than Soft Machine with different people they might be more enjoyable.
Just kind of wish they had decided not to use the name that denotes the band that put out the first couple of lps.

I'd really like to hear the 4 piece with Andy Summers improvising raga guitar, haven't come across any recordings of them though.

Somebody has just re-upped the US tour 1968 recordings to Dime last week. Pretty great set that is, Dada Insanity Vol 3 is its name.

I'm not surer I've heard the last couple of numbered lps

i'll go at least as far as 7. "tarabos"!

It's "Third" for me, but only as found on the "BBC Radio 1967 - 1971" comp.

Alive and Well recorded in Paris has Soft Space, which makes it a good album.

https://softmachine-moonjune.bandcamp.com/album/hidden-details-hd

^ a contender from 2018!

We are doing a "George Washington's ax" as far as Soft Machine goes with this.

That said, I'm planning on seeing them in Los Angeles at the end of January.

you mean a "ship of theseus"

Mid to late 70s members are as good as we'll get now, so I'm all in.

yeah this album is good. they're definitely firmly a fusion band at this point but Theo Travis is pretty great and I'll be seeing them in Berkeley myself

Now that I've heard and completely fallen for Live at the Baked Potato, I guess I need to go back and check out Hidden Details, which I'd missed completely.

Otherwise my answer to this is Seven, which is great!

I will never not rep for Seven. It's got their best cover art too

You guys are making me wonder if I shouldn't be so narrow-minded: so far I've only listened to the ones with Wyatt, incl. several live sets legitimized etc. by Cuneiform over the years, maybe with more to come---comments here, while listening to freebies on bandcamp:Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud? Lotta good stuff, but eventually I had my fill of their all-instrumental shows.

Weird: that doesn't look like a link, but it is, it works. It's alive, I tell you, it's alive!

there is plenty of good stuff after '5', even some after '7' but you have to pick and choose and you have to be open minded about cheesy late 70s / early 80s jazz rock

I've only heard the first 2, the first album is great but the 2nd I didn't like that much :/

I have heard that from a few people before, think Volume Two takes a while to dig its claws in, can't remember not loving it, but I have heard it too many times to recall first impressions now. Third is the one people usually cite as the best (not me, but many people), 4 and 5 are also good, though more generic psych-jazz and much less mind-blowing.

Man, I gotta say it's probably the new one, Other Doors. Still obviously a different beast from the Wyatt years and the '70s, but this might be my favorite of the current era yet!

Wish Nucleus had kept their own name so you didn't have to think mid 70s fusion lps were bad Soft Machine.
They can be like semi interesting in themselves. Just don't want to be going Wyatt was so much more interesting. Like he probably was contemporarily