The Soft Machine

They start out immediately breaking rules as Robert Wyatt duets with himself in the most unconventional way, not particularly caring to synchronize his lines and purposely singing flat to symbolize the cracked bell in the song. When the band kicks in, dominated by Wyatt's drums and Ratledge's organ, it's a loose, jazz-rock sound that always threatens to fall apart but manages to hold on. Kevin Ayers plays a bass guitar, strangely detached, and gets an instrumental feature (Joy Of A Toy), which divides Hope For Happiness in two. In fact, the songs tend to run in to each other to the point that titles become irrelevant, however, it's on So Boot If At All that we get the first instrumental break with manic organ soloing, popping bass and ferocious drumming.
Next up is A Certain Kind, a Hugh Hopper song. Speeded up and presented differently this could have been a r 'n b standard but the Softs turn it into an effective mood piece.
On We Did It Again, Ayers gets a chance to sing and he does so again and again and again pushing the song almost beyond catagory! Then he recites his poetry over the ebb and flow of Why Are We Sleeping but there are problems of sloppy mixing and bad sound.
This album falls short of being either a pop album or a bona-fide jazz-rock one. Ayers' bass playing is competent but doesn't contribute all that much. Ratledge's organ may be too idiosyncratic to fulfill its role as lead instrument. Wyatts singing is of a style that, at any other time, most producers would have dismissed as rubbish and his free-spirited drumming seems in need of a little discipline. But then it wouldn't be the Softs would it and to be honest, there's nothing like it. You see, Wyatt is a fantastic singer and his drumming is thrilling. Ratledge's dissonant solos are hilariously daring and Ayers songs are arranged quite perfectly. The madness is the method and, if you don't mind me saying, it's pure magic.