Soft Machine: Fourth/Fifth

I wish that, when I first went looking for Soft Machine albums in the early 1980s, I'd found this one instead of The Land of Cockayne. It might have taken me longer to come to like it, but I'd have given it a lot of close listening — and I might have turned out a different person as a result.

I've had this CD for over seven years now, but have probably listened to it fewer than seven times. I really liked it this time round. I think of early Soft Machine, with their Mark Boyle light shows, as part of the same scene as Syd-era Pink Floyd — but the music on these two albums is really jazzy.

This makes me want to find out more about Soft Machine. I know Martin Archer is a fan of Mike Ratledge's keyboard playing: there's a track dedicated to him on Ten Studies for Organ. Their Wikipedia entry also points out that their recent biography won an award, so that's quite tempting.

MusicBrainz entry for this album