Soft Machine - Third: Classic or Dud?

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This is fantastic. I checked it out because I liked "Moon In June" - it's actually the least impressive track on here. The first track just starts with those lumbering, beatless slabs of noise, then builds into that moment about 8.5 min in where they hammer in total spazz.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 21 March 2003 20:43 (twenty-three years ago)

10:34 - Are they hitting pieces of metal?

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 21 March 2003 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Great album, though "Moon in June" is my favorite track (followed closely by "Out-Bloody-Rageous")

― Joe (Joe), Friday, 21 March 2003 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

very very classic

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 21 March 2003 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Have you heard (the often maligned) 4, Sundar? "Teeth" is probably my all-time favorite Softs track...

― Joe (Joe), Friday, 21 March 2003 20:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic? Oh yes, no doubt there. Blimpin' fantastic album, in my opinion. I love how those guys can go make whomping jazzyprgrock stuff like that, then Wyatt can go hop out of windows and record awesome pop like "Rock Bottom".

Makes me want to listen to music.

― Øystein Holm-Olsen (Øystein H-O), Friday, 21 March 2003 20:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't heard any of their other albums.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:00 (twenty-three years ago)

teeth is rad..as is chloe...but 3 is it! the 4 horns chasing each other around clockwork rhythms on Outbloody is real nice.

― thomas de'aguirre (biteylove), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I love Third too.

― Sean (Sean), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic. Almost as good as the first album, and better than 2.

― die9o (dhadis), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:03 (twenty-three years ago)

'moon in june' is basically the first wyatt solo record, mostly recorded on his own evidently... If you like the other sides better, certainly get SM 4 and proceed carefully onward. There's good stuff, but the tension loses out to virtuosity.

also hugh hopper's '1984', especially if you're into the tapework textures.

Anyone been getting the recent Cuneiform live discs?

― jl, Friday, 21 March 2003 21:14 (twenty-three years ago)

All the original records w/ Wyatt are classic (up to 4). All seek the Peel Sessions 2cd, where Wyatt improvises new lyrics on "Moon in June". Spaced is great, drony instrumental stuff unlike their other records. Good stuff on many of those posthumous live albums as well. I did like 5 as well, but never felt particularly compelled to get anything after that.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Six (which "Chloe" is on) is also a very underrated one to me, (I am assuming most here would find it an interminable album).

― Joe (Joe), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:23 (twenty-three years ago)

I wonder if anyone other than me will stick up for "Softs"? I love "Third", anyway. It's fucking far out music. Sundar, i recommend you hunt out a copy of the Softs compilation "Triple Echo", which I think was only ever available on vinyl. It's a really good set, and it had some rare stuff on it that you couldn't get anywhere else at the time.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:40 (twenty-three years ago)

"Out-bloody-rageous" is my favourite.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 21 March 2003 21:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Kind of a Terry Riley vibe on that one...

― Joe (Joe), Saturday, 22 March 2003 02:22 (twenty-three years ago)

went home to check it out, that part at 10:34 of 'facelift', I think it's tape loops of the band playing the same riff mixed at half and full speeds going in and out of phase with itself.

― jl, Saturday, 22 March 2003 03:22 (twenty-three years ago)

very classic

― girl scout heroin (iamamonkey), Saturday, 22 March 2003 14:08 (twenty-three years ago)

> Anyone been getting the recent Cuneiform live discs?

yeh - Soft Machine's 'Backwards'(1968-69-70, England/ France/USA) and Matching Mole's 'March' (1972, Europe)
Softs' live is the more enganging listen of the two, methinks

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Saturday, 22 March 2003 15:30 (twenty-three years ago)

There's several live versions of "Moon In June" and "out-bloody-rageous" floating around that are just as good if not better than what's on Third.

― brg30 (brg30), Saturday, 22 March 2003 21:08 (twenty-three years ago)

there are some people who stopped liking soft machine when wyatt left (after 4), some who stopped liking soft machine when wyatt stopped singing (after 3), some who stopped liking soft machine after the pop element was mostly lost (after 2), some who stopped liking soft machine after ayers left (after the first album), and some who stopped liking soft machine after daevid allen left (before the first album). and then there are some people who have soft machine records all the way through the 80's, far past the point where there are any original members left (or even people who played with original members left, maybe?)

― j fail (cenotaph), Sunday, 23 March 2003 02:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Haven't you done this before, Sundar? SM 4

Classic, and one of the more ILM-consensus classic discs.

― nickn (nickn), Sunday, 23 March 2003 07:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, I got around to actually hearing the whole album now.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 23 March 2003 08:22 (twenty-three years ago)

six years pass...

I only have the first Columbia CD edition (1991, a "Nice Price" if I recall) and was listening to it today, RIP Hugh Hopper. Anyway, it sounds pretty muddy -- has it been remastered any time in the last 18 years?

― unicorn poop evaluator (WmC), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 19:53 (seventeen years ago)

dude i was just thinking that when i saw this thread had been bumped--i have the nice price and it sounds terrible. i just found this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Third-Soft-Machine/dp/B000H8RWCE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1244577592&sr=8-1

which i think i'm going to pick up.

― DUDE, I DON'T LOSE (call all destroyer), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 20:01 (seventeen years ago)

oh actually you can buy in america as an import:

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Soft-Machine/dp/B000H8RWCE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1244577717&sr=8-1

― DUDE, I DON'T LOSE (call all destroyer), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 20:03 (seventeen years ago)

Cool, I may get that myself. Listening to "Out-Bloody-Rageous" now -- it's like listening through about five layers of attic insulation.

― unicorn poop evaluator (WmC), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 20:26 (seventeen years ago)

wow we got some synergy going. i'm 5 minutes into it and couldn't agree more. better be a hell of a remastering job tbh.

― DUDE, I DON'T LOSE (call all destroyer), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 20:27 (seventeen years ago)

xp haven't heard the remastered but I've been told that one sounds quite muddy as well

― sonderangerbot, Tuesday, 9 June 2009 20:29 (seventeen years ago)

eleven months pass...

Outbloody is pretty great

― calstars, Sunday, 9 May 2010 02:39 (sixteen years ago)

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