Music And The Mind Machine

As the Soft Machine moved further away from rock on Third and Fourth, drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt's dissatisfaction with the band's direction grew and, by the time sessions started for Fifth in late 1971, he had left permanently to form Matching Mole. While the instrumental Fourth had forayed deep into jazz-rock territory, Fifth found the Soft Machine working almost completely in the jazz idiom. At the time of Wyatt's departure, keyboardist Mike Ratledge commented that the band's co-founder had "never enjoyed or accepted working in complex time signatures." However, Wyatt's replacement - Phil Howard - didn't prove to be the kind of timekeeper Ratledge and bassist Hugh Hopper had in mind and his free jazz orientation led to his dismissal during the recording of the album…

Jon Savage follows up last year’s “1966” set with a similarly packaged 2CD anthology of hits and rarities from 1967. There is no accompanying book this time – so you’ll have to buy this to read all about it in his sleeve notes. In a nutshell: Now typified as the year of flower power, 1967 was the year the 60s divided. During those 12 months, the revenues from LP sales in Britain finally overtook those from 45s. It’s also the year when the British singles charts suddenly revealed a vacuum that, in March 1967, was filled by a Top 10 that included Englebert Humperdinck, Petula Clark, Harry Secombe, Vince Hill, the Seekers and other mums and dads records that you will not be hearing on this compilation.

Once Upon A Time is the definitive last word on Family. A long-awaited 14 disc box set that collects the band's entire back catalogue for the first time…

The complete collection of Achim Reichel’s innovative avant-garde project in the early 1970s. The lavishly designed 10 CD box-set includes all five studio albums and almost five hours of rare and unreleased music, a new remix-album – Virtual Journey – as well as a hardcover book with the artist’s own liner notes. A lucky accident was the catalyst. In Hamburg in the early 70s, while playing with his new Akai X330D tape machine, Achim Reichel discovered he could build soundscapes of guitar echoes and add even more simultaneously. He spent hours in his room with headphones on, growing his orchestra of guitars. A.R. & Machines recorded five studio albums. Their debut, “Die grüne Reise”, – The Green Journey – was released in 1971 on tape cassette and vinyl, and was met with complete confusion, even from the music press, who had no genre-drawer to stick it into, and is a lasting Krautrock monument captured on tape.