SOFT MACHINE - FACELIFT FRANCE & HOLLAND [2LP/DVD]

CUNEIFORM

£57.60

Format: LPX2+DVD
Catalogue No.: RUNE495LP
Barcode: 0045775049519
Release Date: 10 Feb 2023
Genre: Prog/Kraut-Rock

2 x vinyl LPs + NTSC all region DVD in a gatefold sleeve.

Elton Dean - Alto sax, saxello
Lyn Dobson - Soprano and tenor sax, flute, harmonica, vocals
Hugh Hopper - Bass
Mike Ratledge - Hohner Pianet, Lowrey Holiday Deluxe organ
Robert Wyatt - Drums, vocals

Jazzwise Magazine: #10 in their Reissues of the Year 2022

From their beginnings as a psychedelic rock band in 1966, sharing stages with Pink Floyd and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to being one of the originators of electric jazz/rock by early 1969, Britain's Soft Machine were restlessly creative. Facelift France and Holland captures them at a pivotal moment in the first quarter of 1970 as a short-lived quintet, just before they recorded and released their breakthrough album Third.

As broadcast on the French TV programme Pop 2, the film of Soft Machine's concert at Paris' Théâtre de la Musique, which constitutes the main course of this release, stands as an exceptional document of the band at, arguably, its artistic peak. It is the earliest footage of the band to be commercially released and also the only video footage known to exist of the quintet line-up that was active from January to March 1970, and contains the only professionally recorded performance of "Out-Bloody-Rageous" with Lyn Dobson on second sax. It also is the only professionally-recorded alternative performance by the quintet of "Facelift" (the original appearing as the opening track on Third).

In addition to the March, 1970 material presented here on vinyl and DVD in splendid stereo sound, Side D presents a previously unreleased performance at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw from January 1970.

Side A - (March, 1970)
1. Facelift

Side B - (March, 1970)
1. Backwards
2. Mousetrap (reprise)
3. Out-Bloody-Rageous

Side C - (March, 1970)
1. Eamonn Andrews
2. Esthers Nose Job/Piggling Bland]

Side D - (January, 1970)
1. Facelift
2. Moon In June
3. 12/8 Theme

Disc Three [DVD] (March, 1970)
1. Eamonn Andrews
2. Backwards
3. Mousetrap (reprise)
4. Out-Bloody-Rageous
5. Facelift
6. Vocal Improvisation
7. Esther's Nose Job / Pigling Bland