Soft Machine discography

This article has no lead section. Please help by adding a lead section that introduces the topic and concisely summarizes the body. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. (October 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Soft Machine discography
Studio albums	15

Discography[]

Studio albums[]

Year	Album	Line-up	Additional musicians
1968	The Soft Machine	Ratledge, Wyatt, Ayers	Hugh Hopper
1969	Volume Two	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper	Brian Hopper
1970	Third	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean	Lyn Dobson, Nick Evans, Jimmy Hastings, Rab Spall
1971	Fourth	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean	Evans, Hastings, Mark Charig, Roy Babbington, Alan Skidmore
1972	Fifth	Ratledge, Howard/Marshall, Hopper, Dean	Babbington
1973	Six	Ratledge, Marshall, Hopper, Jenkins
1973	Seven	Ratledge, Marshall, Babbington, Jenkins
1975	Bundles	Ratledge, Marshall, Babbington, Jenkins, Holdsworth	Ray Warleigh
1976	Softs	Jenkins, Marshall, Babbington, Wakeman, Etheridge	Ratledge
1981	Land of Cockayne	Jenkins, Marshall	Holdsworth, Warleigh, Alan Parker, John Taylor, Jack Bruce, Dick Morrissey
2018	Hidden Details[1][2][3]	Travis, Marshall, Babbington, Etheridge	Nick Utteridge

Live albums[]

Recorded	Released	Album	Line-up
September 1967 – May 1968	2006	Middle Earth Masters	Ratledge, Wyatt, Ayers
March 1969	1996	Live at the Paradiso 1969	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper
November 1969 – May 1970	2002	Backwards	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean, Dobson, Evans, Charig
January 1970	2000	Noisette	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean, Dobson
January 1970	2005	Breda Reactor	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
April 1970	2004	Somewhere in Soho	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
April 1970	2002	Facelift	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
August 1970	1988	Live at the Proms 1970	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
October 1970	2006	Grides	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
February 1971	2009	Live at Henie Onstad Art Centre 1971	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
March 1971	1998	Virtually	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
March 1971	1993	Soft Machine & Heavy Friends – BBC in Concert	Ratledge, Wyatt, Hopper, Dean
November 1971	2008	Drop	Ratledge, Hopper, Dean, Howard
May 1972	2008	Live in Paris	Ratledge, Hopper, Dean, Marshall
June 1972	1994	Soft Stage – BBC in Concert 1972	Ratledge, Hopper, Marshall, Jenkins
Nov–Dec 1972	1973	Six (Disc 1)	Ratledge, Hopper, Marshall, Jenkins
May 1973	2010	NDR Jazz Workshop Hamburg, Germany	Ratledge, Marshall, Jenkins, Babbington
July 1974	2015	Switzerland 74 (CD + DVD)	Ratledge, Marshall, Jenkins, Babbington, Holdsworth
January 1975	2006	Floating World Live	Ratledge, Marshall, Jenkins, Babbington, Holdsworth
October 1975	2005	British Tour '75	Ratledge, Marshall, Jenkins, Babbington, Etheridge
July 1977	1978	Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris	Marshall, Jenkins, Etheridge
February 2019	2020	Live at The Baked Potato Recorded live at The Baked Potato, Los Angeles, CA, on 1 February 2019. Released on 20 March 2020[a][4][5]	Marshall, Babbington, Etheridge, Travis

Compilation albums[]

Year	Album	Notes
1972	Jet Propelled Photographs	1967 demos with the original line-up
1977	Triple Echo	A "best of" album, including their first single and material from all the studio albums up to Softs
1990	The Peel Sessions	Recorded during 1969–71
1994	Rubber Riff	Stock music composed by Jenkins, 1976
1996	Spaced	Recorded in 1969, soundtrack for a work of artist Peter Dockley
2001	Turns On Volume 1	Lo-fi recordings from April to December 1967
2001	Turns On Volume 2	Lo-fi recordings from November 1967 to August 1968
2003	BBC Radio 1967–1971
2003	BBC Radio 1971–1974

Other minor releases[]

These albums were released by small labels, and most of their content is available on the main albums listed above.

Year	Album	Notes
1972	Rock Generation Vol. 7	One side only, April 1967 De Lane Lea Studios demo recordings with Giorgio Gomelsky.
1972	Rock Generation Vol. 8	One side only, more April 1967 demo recordings. This and the preceding entry were combined on many subsequent releases, under such titles as Faces & Places Vol.7 (BYG Records, 1972), At the Beginning (Charly Records, 1976), Jet Propelled Photographs (Piccadilly, 1980 [LP], Charly, 2003 [CD]), and several others. These issues contain the track "She's Gone", recorded in April 1967, which is not the same track released in Triple Echo.
1975	1&2 (Architects of Space Time)
1990	The Untouchable	Compilation from Bundles, Softs, and Alive and Well.
1991	As If...	Curious (probably unauthorized) compilation with six Ratledge/Hopper compositions ranging from 1970 (Third) to 1973 (Six) in sparse order.
1994	Soft Machine	Live At The Paradiso 1969 plus six tracks from Jet Propelled Photographs.
1995	The Harvest Albums 1975–1978	Includes tracks from Bundles (1975) to Alive & Well (1978).
1998	Canterburied Sounds (Vol. 1–4)	Voiceprint Records released four CDs containing several tracks by various musicians from the Canterbury scene (mainly from the Soft Machine and the Caravan bands), compiled and with notes by Brian Hopper. The four single CDs are re-released in 2013 in a boxed set.
1998	Live 1970 (also known as Live in Europe 1970)	Tracks 1–2 recorded on 13 February 1970 at Swansea (or 14 at the London School of Economics); tracks 3–11 also in Live at the Proms; here, with the edited version of "Out-Bloody-Rageous" from 11:54 to 8:46, and "Esther's Nose Job" split in seven contiguous tracks.
1999	Fourth / Fifth
2001	Turns On vol. 1	Includes tracks from the Middle Earth and Speakeasy clubs in London, recorded in 1967, including a low-quality remaster of "She's Gone" (2:37), recorded in June 1967, previously available only on Triple Echo (1977).
2001	Turns On vol. 2	Includes low-quality tracks from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, 10 December 1967, the Middle Earth Club, 10 November 1967 and from the Col Ballroom, Davenport, Iowa, 11 August 1968.
2001	Man in a Deaf Corner	Anthology 1963–1970; Disc 1 mainly containing live pieces from 1963 to circa 1967, with tracks 7–9 also in Turns On vol. 1 (respectively tracks 2, 1, 16); Disc 2 containing a recording at the Paradiso, 29 March 1969 (tracks 1–10) also in Live at the Paradiso (about 32 min out of 40 min); tracks 11–12 ("Facelift" and "Moon in June" – short versions) also in Live 1970 (respectively tracks 1–2); tracks 13–16 recorded at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon on 26 April 1970, also in Facelift (respectively tracks 4–7); track 17 is a Jakko Jakszyk rendition of "As Long as He Lies Perfectly Still" in conjunction with the two short tracks "That Still and Perfect Summer" and "Astral Projection in Pinner" to appear in his future album The Bruised Romantic Glee Club (Iceni 2006).
2004	Six/Seven
2005	Out-Bloody-Rageous: An Anthology 1967–1973
2005	Orange Skin Food	2-CD live compilation of previously released live recordings; tracks from Somewhere In Soho, recorded 20–25 April 1971, Facelift, recorded 26 April 1970 and the entire Live in Europe 1970, recorded 13 or 14 February 1970 and 13 August 1970 at the Proms.
2010	Original Album Classics	Includes the whole Third, Fourth, Fifth, Six and Seven in the 2007 remaster.
2011	Tales of Taliesin: The EMI Years Anthology 1975–1981
2013	68	Credited to Robert Wyatt, it nonetheless contains an 18 minutes early version of "Rivmic Melodies" (to appear in the 1969 album Volume 2) and a 20 minutes early version of "Moon in June" (to appear in the 1970 album Third), both recorded in U.S. in 1968, after Soft Machine dissolution, and just before the new formation with Hopper in place of Ayers.
2013	Canterburied Sounds	Re-issue in a single 4 CDs edition of the four titles previously released in 1998 by Brian Hopper on Voiceprint.
2014	Tanglewood Tails	2 CDs, anthology – Disc 1 with tracks 1–4 from 1963 (also in "Canterburied Sounds"), tracks 5–12 from 1967 studio recordings (also in Turns On vol. 1); Disc 2 with tracks 1–4 live from the Col Ballroom, Davenport, Iowa, 11 August 1968 (also in Turns On vol. 2), tracks 5–6 live from the Paradiso, Amsterdam, 29 March 1969 (also in Live at the Paradiso), tracks 7–11 live from the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, 26 April 1970 (also in "Facelift"). The quality of tracks are far better than in both volumes of Turns On (especially "She's Gone" – June 1967 version that now has a quality comparable to the Triple Echo version – that is up to now the only acceptable CD version of this track).
2014	Turns On (An early collection)	2 CDs – Reprint from Floating World Records of the two Turns On volumes of 2001, with the same track list. The low quality of the former editions was here maintained.
2014	Live in 1970	4 CDs – Reprint of two live concerts. Disc 1 and Disc 2 recorded at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club on 20–25 April 1970 (already in Somewhere in Soho, Voiceprint, 2004), Disc 3 and Disc 4 recorded at Het Turfschip, Breda, Netherlands on 31 January 1970 (already in Breda Reactor, Voiceprint, 2005).
2014	Live in the 70s	4 CDs – Reprint of various live concerts. Disc 1 and the first four tracks on Disc 2 also issued as Live in Paris (Cuneiform, 2004); tracks 5–7 of Disc 2 also appear on Backwards (Cuneiform, 2002); Mark Charig is here wrongly mentioned as the trumpet player; Disc 3 was previously released as Noisette (Cuneiform, 2000) and Disc 4 was previously issued as Drop (Moonjune, 2008).
2015	Hugh Hopper Volume 9: Anatomy of Facelift	Five performances of "Facelift", 1969 through 1971.
2019	Live in London in the early Sixties (LP)	Eight tracks recorded live in 1963 in London, with Brian Hopper (sax), Hugh Hopper (cello, bass), Robert Wyatt (drums, voice), Kevin Ayers (bass, voice), Mike Ratledge (organ), Daevid Allen (guitar). These tracks are also in Man in a Deaf Corner (2001, 2 CD) as tracks 1.01–1.06 in a different remix.
2019	Top Gear Live in London 1967–1969 (LP)	Side 1 recorded in 1967 with Robert Wyatt (drums, voice), Kevin Ayers (bass, voice), Mike Ratledge (organ); Side 2 recorded in 1969 with Robert Wyatt (drums, voice), Hugh Hopper (bass, voice), Mike Ratledge (organ) and including Facelift and Moon in June.

Singles[]

• 1967: "Love Makes Sweet Music/Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin'" [UK/NL]
• 1968: "Joy of a Toy/Why Are We Sleeping?" [US/JPN]
• 1978: "Soft Space (Part 1)/(Part 2)" [UK/Europe]

Bootlegs[]

The 1960s[]

1968

• 1968, 08–11, Live at Davenport, Iowa (supporting The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
• 1968, 08–16, Live at the Merryweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland (supporting The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
• 1968, 09–13, Live at the Hollywood Bowl, California (supporting The Jimi Hendrix Experience)

1969

• 1969, 04–13, Live at the Country Club in London
• 1969, 06–25, Live at the Ba.Ta.Clan in Paris
• 1969, 08–09, Live at Plumpton Race Course – only "Moon in June" was performed
• 1969, 10–05, Live at the Lyceum in London
• 1969, 10–28, Live at Actuel Festival in Amougies, Belgium – excerpt
• 1969, 10–6–27, Live at the Liverpool University – excerpt

The 1970s[]

1970

• 1970, 01–04, Live at the Fairfield Halls, in Croydon – This concert was published as Noisette (Cuneiform, 2000), but this official release lacks "Facelift" that was in part used for the Third album (1970), where it is joined by another version recorded 11 January and overdubbed. This concert is inserted here only because the version of "Facelift" herein contained (over 25 minutes long) is a very special version and the full song would deserve an official treatment.
• 1970, 01–17, Live at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam
• 1970, 04–04, Live at the Kolner Festival, Germany
• 1970, 09–01, BBC Radiophonic Workshop – Eamonn Andrews explained
• 1970, 09–17, Alan Black "Sound of the Seventies" (broadcast 25 Sept.), recorded at the Camden Theatre in London
• 1970, 10–24, Live at DeDoelen, Rotterdam – excerpt

1971

• 1971, 02–07, Live at the Roundhouse, London, UK
• 1971, 03–21, Live in Het Turfschip, Breda, Netherlands
• 1971, 06–07, Live at the Cafe au Go Go (the Gaslight) in New York City
• 1971, 10–17, Donaueschinger Musiktage – this concert has appeared partially on Drop (Moonjune 2008)
• 1971, 11–07, Live at the Berlin Jazz Festival – there exist two versions of this concert: the live recording and the radio broadcast (with German DJ inserts) – this concert has appeared partially on Drop (Moonjune 2008).

1972

• 1972, 04–22, Live at Palazzo dello Sport in Bergamo, Italy
• 1972, 04–24, Live at the Piper Club in Rome – one of the last concerts with Elton Dean
• 1972, 06–07, Live at King's Cross Cinema – this concert is arguably the first with Karl Jenkins
• 1972, 12–03, Live at Fairfield Halls, Croydon, UK

1974

• 1974, 03–11, Radio Interview with Mike Ratledge and Alan Holdsworth for an American radio broadcast
• 1974, 03–13, Live at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York
• 1974, 03–17, Live at "My Father's Place" in Roslyn, New York
• 1974, 03–23–24, Live at the Howard Stein's Academy of Music in New York
• 1974, 08–10, Live at Le Naiadi, Pescara, Italy
• 1974, 09–20–24, Villa Pamphili Festival in Rome

1975

• 1975, 01–16, Live in Stuttgart, Germany
• 1975, 08–17, Live at the Théâtre antique d'Orange, Orange Festival in France
• 1975, 08–24, Live at the Reading Festival, UK
• 1975, 08–29, Live in Vienna
• 1975, 11–26, Live at the Cinéma Variétés in Marseille, France

1976

• 1976, 02–18, Live at the Palasport in Reggio Emilia, Italy
• 1976, 08–08, Live in Trieste, Italy
• 1976, 10–09, Live in Roskilde, Copenhagen
• 1976, 12–03, Live at the Palais des Sports in Paris

Related bands, projects & tributes discography[]

Discography[]

Year	Album	Soft Machine members involved
The Wilde Flowers
1965–69	The Wilde Flowers (released in 1994)	Ayers, Hopper, Wyatt
Planet Earth
1978	Planet Earth	Ratledge, Jenkins
Soft Head
1978	Rogue Element	Hopper, Dean
Soft Heap
1979	Soft Heap	Hopper, Dean
1979	Al Dente (released in 2008)	Hopper, Dean
1982-83	A Veritable Centaur (released in 1995)	Dean
Rubba
1979	Push Button	Ratledge, Jenkins
2nd Vision
1980	First Steps	Etheridge, Sanders
Rollercoaster
1980	Wonderin'	Ratledge, Jenkins
Soft Works
2002	Abracadabra (released in 2003)	Hopper, Dean, Holdsworth, Marshall
Soft Mountain
2003	Soft Mountain (released in 2007)	Hopper, Dean
Soft Bounds
2004	Live at Le Triton (released in 2005)	Hopper, Dean
Soft Machine Legacy
2005	Live In Zaandam	Hopper, Dean, Etheridge, Marshall
2006	Soft Machine Legacy	Hopper, Dean, Etheridge, Marshall
2006	Live at the New Morning	Hopper, Dean, Etheridge, Marshall
2007	Steam	Hopper, Travis, Etheridge, Marshall
2010	Live Adventures	Babbington, Travis, Etheridge, Marshall
2013	Burden of Proof	Babbington, Travis, Etheridge, Marshall
Delta Saxophone Quartet
2007	Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening: The Music Of Soft Machine	Hopper (as a guest on some tracks)

Notes[]

References[]