The Soft Machine (also titled Volume One as a reissue) is the debut album by the British psychedelic rock band Soft Machine, released in 1968. It is the group's only album to feature Kevin Ayers as a member.
Overview
Founded in 1966 by keyboardist Mike Ratledge, drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt, bassist/vocalist Kevin Ayers and guitarists Daevid Allen and Larry Nowlin, Soft Machine were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene and had been staples of the London underground, playing the UFO Club with Pink Floyd. After their first single, February 1967's "Love Makes Sweet Music", failed to chart, they put future releases on hold while they continued to tour. Eventually, they recorded this self-titled debut album in New York City during a spring 1968 tour of the USA with The Jimi Hendrix Experience,[3] produced by Chas Chandler and Tom Wilson. By the time it was recorded, the band had been reduced to a three-piece, with Nowlin leaving in September 1966 and Allen having left in August 1967, going on to form the band Gong. After the album was completed, future Police guitarist Andy Summers joined the band; he left after just two months, returning them to a three-piece until Ayers himself left that September, effectively ending The Soft Machine until its reformation at the end of the year.
The work on this album was one of the essential roots in progressive rock and jazz-fusion.[citation needed] Two of the tracks, "Save Yourself" and "So Boot If At All" (under its original title and lyric "I Should've Known") stem from a series of April 1967 demos cut with Daevid Allen. With Allen's departure, Mike Ratledge took over the group's solos on a Lowrey organ, attempting to beef up its sound with a fuzz box and Wah-wah pedal at the suggestion of Hendrix. Musically, the album is a transitional release between more concise, conventional pop music with avant-garde electronics and free-form jazz improvisations, using a scaled-down, keyboard-led trio format similar to The Nice.
The album initially saw release only in the United States, Canada and France,[4] where it made little impact. Retrospective critical appraisals have been largely positive, with AllMusic gushing that "it was one of the few over-ambitious records of the psychedelic era that actually delivered on all its incredible promise".[2]
The original artwork featured a circular die-cut sleeve, revealing a rotating wheel card insert with gears through which the band members could be viewed underneath (a similar gimmick would later be tried for Led Zeppelin III). The original issue’s gatefold and back sleeve also featured the uncensored image of a nude girl's backside.
The 2009 Remastered Edition includes "Love Makes Sweet Music" and "Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'" (bonus tracks), which were-respectively-Side A and Side B of their first single, issued in 1967.
