Soft Machine - Virtually

Before Robert Wyatt started to make atmospheric and slow song-based albums like Rock Bottom and Old Rottenhat that feature his sad voice and dreamy keyboard sounds, he (as a respected figure in British psychedelic/progressive/jazzy underground scene) was a powerhouse drummer, whose style was raw, rocking, loose and energetic. Virtually presents a Soft Machine concert from March 1971 in Germany that showcases a lot of Wyatt's intensity on the trap-kit. Most of the live material presented herein owes its unrelenting sonic force to his strong, assertive and anarchistic hooliganry, that gives the songs from Third and Fourth a lot more energy and urgency. The same applies to the embryonic takes on a few tunes from Fifth - "All White" and "Pigling Bland", the latter still featuring the short bit from the end of "10:30 Returns to Bedroom" - the first Wyatt-less Softs album. The whole set is massively energetic. When the substantially altered "Facelift"; which jettisons a lot of rigid arrangement aspects in favor of more free flowing and austere improvisational approach; breaks into intense Mike Ratledge organ solo backed up by monstrous drums, we have the most furious version of this song since the one that ended up on the Third album.

Granted, this kind of energy does not always guarantee greatness, as some of the numbers sound a bit sloppily played. "Teeth" suffers the most, as its elaborate compositional twists were too severe to handle for Hugh Hopper, who has complained about the song being extremely difficult to play. Roy Babbington's string bass from the studio version is missed, as are the massed horns. But otherwise, "Fletcher's Blemish" has, as a rare treat, Wyatt spouting some babbly nonsense to his mic sounding even madder than Damo Suzuki (think "Peking O" on Can's Tago Mago) could ever hope for! Another example of Wyatt's scatting would be (again, altered version of) "Eamonn Andrews" when echo-drenched Wyatt quotes the intro lyrics to "Hope For Happiness". This sounds truly trippy and is probably the closest resembling the eccentric psychedelic spirit of the original Soft Machine. Another interesting piece is the free-jazz jam of "Neo Caliban Grides" to which Wyatt contributes excellent driving drums and Hugh Hopper plays dissonant fuzz and wah driven bass.

Overall the band was evolving toward free-er and more minimalistic style of jazz-fusion that still had quite raw and rock-oriented crudes as the rhythm section of fuzz-bassist Hopper and hooligan drummer Wyatt indicated, but it goes without saying that after Wyatt's eventual departure the band that would record Fifth ended up sounding more polished and colder. This archival live release gives us a chance to hear Soft Machine in the more abrasive warts-n-all setting.