Soft Machine: Alive in Paris 1970 DVD

Rare Televison Footage of the Influential Jazz-Rock Band Unearthed

Dec 20, 2008

Along with Kevin Ayers and Caravan, Soft Machine were members of the critically-acclaimed but resolutely underground Canterbury scene in the late 1960s.

Coalescing around a nucleus of Mike Ratledge (keyboards), Hugh Hopper (bass) and drummer/ occasional vocalist Robert Wyatt, they toured extensively with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and were a staple of happening counter-culture events such as 1967's 24 Hour Technicolour Dream at London's Alexandra Palace.

Lacking the whimsical pop sensibility of their local contemporaries, though, Soft Machine were more of an acquired taste. Indeed, theirs was an exotic, free form flavour this new DVD will struggle to introduce to a new generation of would-be followers in the less hippie-friendly 21st Century.

Alive in Paris 1970

This isn't to suggest Alive in Paris 1970 (www.voiceprint.co.uk) is lacking in worth. It's beautifully-packaged and features a detailed booklet explaining the band's rise to popularity in Europe during the late 1960s. Transferred from the French TV archives, the picture quality has also scrubbed up well for pre-digital film, while the venue itself (the Theatre de la Musique) is an architectural gem. Dating from 1860, it played host to Offenbach operettas prior to flirting with contemporary music in the 1960s and 70s.

Jazz-rock explorations

But while the setting is stunning, the music's appeal is a little more selective. Only a confirmed fan could love an 18-minute jazz-rock exploration like Facelift, while the honking horns supplied by part-time members Lyn Dobson and Elton Dean during the comparative brevity (9 minutes!) of Eamonn Andrews are more akin to feeding time at the duck pond than a cutting edge rock show.

Robert Wyatt's End of an Ear

Although Robert Wyatt's vocal scatting at the beginning of the delightfully-titled Esther's Nosejob sounds like a dry run for his left-field solo works like The End of an Ear, the tune itself descends into free jazz hell. It's all sounding grim until some discipline finally surfaces on the brief (4 minute) Backwards/ Mousetrap and they pull out the stops for the finale of Out-bloody-rageous. Despite the oddball title, it's the one place where the intuitive ensemble playing takes them somewhere truly fascinating and its' extensive 15 minutes seems far too short.

Soft Machine's influence on Can and Radiohead

Alive In Paris, then, is something of a mixed blessing. Its' vintage footage reminds us that Soft Machine's improvisatory skills have gone on to influence everyone from Can and Eugene Chadbourne through to modern-day luminaries such as Radiohead, yet it requires a lot of patience to endure in one sitting. Robert Wyatt's sublime solo albums remain a better point of entry for the uninitiated.

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