Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Live at Henie Onstad Art Center 1971


Finally it´s here: Soft Machine "Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre 1971" (Reel Recordings 2009)! Lots of people have been waiting for this one, and when it is here, it is close to perfect! Soft Machine played at Henie Onstad 27 and 28 February 1971, Mark Boyle and Joan Hills doing the lights. Here we get recordings from the second day on two CDs, and we also get one accompanying CD-R with information.
The band is Michael Ratledge, Elton Dean, Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt (soon to leave the band). They play material from the Soft Machine albums "3" (1970) and "4" (1971), with tunes like "Facelift", "Virtually", "Slightly all the time", "Fletcher´s Blemish", "Neo-Caliban Grides", "Out-Bloody-Rageous", "All White", "Kings and Queens", "Teeth", "Pigling Bland" and "Noisette" (with good help from the CD-R here). The band does not play the tunes as such, but two long sets as they used to do. And the sound is just great!
Live recordings with the same people may be found on "Grides" (Cuneiform 2006), "Virtually" (Cuneiform 1998), "In Europe" (Blueprint 1998) and "BBC Radio 1967-1971" (Hux 2003), and check out "Drop" (Moonjune 2008) too, but Phil Howard plays the drums on this one, in Robert´s place.
Start by buying Soft Machine "Live at Henie Onstad Art Center 1971". Great stuff!

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