Continuing the saga of Soft Machine, who’ve already kicked off a 50th anniversary world tour (coming to North America this fall), and whose new album Hidden Details can be ordered at Bandcamp. Click here for Part One of this series, covering the band’s psychedelic years of 1966-69.
When last we left our heroes, quoting their website,
The base trio [of Mike Ratledge on organ, Hugh Hopper on bass and Robert Wyatt on drums and vocals] was, later in 1969, expanded to a septet with the addition of four horn players, though only saxophonist Elton Dean remained beyond a few months …
Cuneiform’s archive release Noisette reveals Soft Machine shaping a new sound onstage. Recorded live at Croydon in January 1970, this quintet set is dominated by Dean’s and saxophonist/flutist Lyn Dobson’s uninhibited blowing. The psychedelic song suites have nearly vanished; Wyatt only sings on “Hibou, Anemone and Bear,” where he’s given a completely solo moment, and material from the first two albums is exiled to the end of the show.
With Dobson out, the remaining quartet pulled together live recordings, studio inserts and tape experimentation to produce the four suites (one per side) on 1970’s double album Third — their first for Columbia Records. Hopper’s “Facelift” and Ratledge’s “Out-Bloody-Rageous” sandwich upbeat jazz workouts (asymmetric rhythms, harmonized sax sections, fired-up, skittery solos from Ratledge, Dean and guests) between Wyatt-less intros and codas — avant-garde improvs, classical fanfares, minimalist cycling keyboard riffs. Wyatt’s vulnerable, stream of consciousness epic “Moon in June” was the only vocal piece — and he played most of it (drums and keys) himself, with Ratledge and Hopper tacked on for the playout. Ratledge’s “Slightly All the Time” is the most integrated piece here, with the core group and guests swinging over appealing grooves and ratcheting up the excitement via Ratledge and Dean’s solo work.
Rough-edged it may have been, but Third was perfectly timed; with Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew pulling jazz toward rock, Soft Machine was heading for the same destination from the opposite direction. The album gained attention, kudos and sales across Europe and the US, and the Softs became the first band to play at the Royal Albert Hall’s classical Promenade Concerts.
(Hmmm … 
There’s also a copy of the Isle of Wight festival flier which I missed as it was the weekend which we were heading home. Such fond memories.
And talking with my brother later, I heard the story of how he and my cousin somehow got permission to go to the 1969 Detroit Rock’n’Roll Revival (with the MC5, Chuck Berry, Dr. John, The “Psychedelic” Stooges and many more acts) the night before my sister’s wedding. Maybe I should rethink missing 
Progarchy 