Soft Machine's French tours of late 1969 and early 1970 have been the subject of several releases, official and otherwise. Some, including
Voiceprint's
Facelift, were drawn from hopelessly dodgy audience recordings and are, despite being licensed, simply substandard bootlegs. Others, such as
Cuneiform's
Noisette, offer carefully curated performances using the best sources possible. The three-disc
Facelift France & Holland adds another dimension to
Cuneiform's curatorial excavation of
Soft Machine's history. Though the band had toured France at the end of 1969 as a septet with a brass section, they were a quintet in early 1970 when they returned to complete the 30-date tour. In addition to drummer
Robert Wyatt, bassist
Hugh Hopper, saxophonist
Elton Dean, and keyboardist
Mike Ratledge, the
Softs brought English saxophonist
Lyn Dobson along.
This release contains a restored DVD/video of the band's stellar performance at Paris' Theatre de la Musique. It was originally broadcast in two edited 40-minute segments in April and July 1970 on French television's Pop 2. Painstakingly cleaned thanks to the vault discovery of an earlier work-in-progress edit of the first set, the producers used audience sources as patches to remove fake clapping and noise. The concert is as compelling to watch as to listen to.
Wyatt's completely unhinged physicality is on full display here.
Soft Machine's interplay throughout is disciplined, instinctive, and sophisticated. The DVD offers the only existing footage of the quintet lineup that existed only from January to March.
The first audio disc replicates the Paris performance. While the mix is a bit thin in places, the sound remains detailed and dynamic. In addition to scorching versions of "Mousetrap," "Eamonn Andrews," and "Noisette," this is the only professionally recorded performance available of "Out-Bloody-Rageous" with
Dobson. There is one caveat: the full version of
Ratledge's killer "Slightly All the Time" sounds less than optimal. Along with almost half of the second set, it was left out of the edited broadcast. An audience recording of the tune has been inserted back into this performance for historical significance, but this is a tiny quibble.
The second audio disc contains
Soft Machine's Concertgebouw appearance in Amsterdam that January. Its source is an unusually clean soundboard tape. In addition to a moody, sinister opening reading of "Facelift," it features a true rarity in the live performance of
Hugh Hopper's "12/8 Theme." A studio version didn't appear until the bassist released his 1996
Monster Band album. The concert also offers a sprawling, completed version of "Esther's Nose Job" -- truncated for the Pop 2 performance.
France & Holland showcases
Soft Machine at an exciting juncture. Absent for much of 1968 due to U.S. tours with
Jimi Hendrix Experience and a brief split, this return, following the septet dates in December 1969, reveals a band that had all but completely abandoned the vanguard pop psychedelia of earlier albums to develop a unique approach that embodied both the emergent prog rock and electric jazz scenes. This is indispensable. ~ Thom Jurek
