SOFT MACHINE — Fifth (review)

SOFT MACHINE — Fifth album cover Album · 1972 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
Warthur
If Fourth captured the Soft Machine drifting towards pure jazz territory, Fifth sees them having travelled most of the way there. With Robert Wyatt having been jettisoned, the first half of the album sees temporary replacement Phil Howard on drums, with his replacement John Marshall (who would be the sole member of this lineup to survive to the very end of the band's career) taking over on side two. As well as losing Wyatt, the band also appears to jettison most of its connection to the Canterbury sound with this album, with the music being gentle, quasi-ambient fusion showing a clear influence from In a Silent Way, with Mike Ratledge's keyboards at points taking on a quasi-New Age sort of sound - as can be heard on Drop. Personally, I tend to regard this album and Fourth as being a failed stab at establishing respectability amongst the jazz establishment - as I said about the Fourth, often the music here sounds more conventional and less interesting than a lot of fusion worked made by highly respected jazz musicians of the era. Following this one, a few rock elements would return to the band's music, bringing them closer to the jazz-rock fusion mainstream.

As it is, Fifth is an album which will presents nothing whatsoever that is related to the Canterbury sound, won't excite fusion fans, and isn't likely to convince jazz fans either. It captures the Softs in the act of essentially abandoning their earlier audience in the hope of finding a different one, only to produce an album incapable of pleasing anybody. It's not flat-out incompetent and it's probably worth a listen if you are a major fan of the Softs, but there are many better Canterbury albums, many better fusion albums, many better jazz albums, and a good number of better albums that mix all of those three styles together than this one.

And in the last category, to illustrate the failure of the Softs' Fourth/Fifth-era approach, I'd include Matching Mole - which is, of course, Robert Wyatt's first post-Machine album. That just about says it all really. Thankfully, the band would undergo another evolution in time for Six, which improved its fortunes immensely and is probably responsible for allowing it to survive as long as it did; I think another album in this vein would have killed Soft Machine stone dead.

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

About (or On)First Visit Avant-Garde Jazz
ELLERY ESKELIN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Noah Kaplan Quartet : Out Of The Hole Avant-Garde Jazz
NOAH KAPLAN
Buy this album from MMA partners
To Walk On Eggshells Avant-Garde Jazz
RUSS JOHNSON
Buy this album from MMA partners
Snakeoil : Snakeoil Ok Avant-Garde Jazz
TIM BERNE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Poetry of Place (from the exhibit by painter Karen Allen) Jazz Related Improv/Composition
CHRIS DINGMAN
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio Dream a Dream
SATOKO FUJII
js· 1 day ago
Wojciech Jachna Squad - Ad Astra (Promo Teaser)
WOJCIECH JACHNA
snobb· 4 days ago
Nitty Gritty
RUSS SPIEGEL
js· 4 days ago
Never in a 100.000.000 Dreams
SUPERSISTER
js· 5 days ago
Love is a Fire that Burns Unseen
PETER MADSEN
js· 5 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed