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Spaced

by Soft Machine

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1.
Spaced One 12:04
2.
Spaced Two 07:38
3.
Spaced Three 02:58
4.
Spaced Four 32:12
5.
Spaced Five 04:18
6.
Spaced Six 04:12
7.
Spaced Seven 03:55

about

"...Spaced encapsulates an invigorating divination of gloomy psychedelia/Kluster-meets-Albert Ayler freedom...it sounds like psilocybin heaven."
-The Wire.

Spaced is previously unreleased studio recordings recorded in early/mid 1969 by the "classic" Soft Machine trio line-up of Hugh Hopper [bass], Mike Ratledge [electric piano/organ] and Robert Wyatt [drums].

These heavily manipulated/ looped/etc. recordings were originally presented as the backdrop to a multi-media work entitled Spaced. After it's week-long performance, the tapes were forgotten for over two decades until rediscovered by Mike King.

These recordings feature the band at their most radical, and while they would never again use the studio in such an extreme fashion, the work done here definitely influenced later works such as Facelift on Third and Hugh's 1984.



"After supporting Hendrix on the USA tour of 1968, the shell-shocked Softs said “No More!” Kevin Ayers left to begin a lifelong devotion to sunshine and Mediterranean islands; Robert Wyatt planned to stay in the States and become a solo artist; Mike Ratledge hoped never again in his life to see the inside of another club, theatre, stadium...

But they had forgotten the two-record deal they had signed up for – and a man has to do what a man has to do! They asked me to fill in for Kevin – just to do a studio record and then carry on with real life. Ha ha. Of course it became: “Well, just a spot on Hendrix's London concert to promote the album, fellers...” Then: “Got this little tour of France and Holland for you...” And off again for another ten years.

But early in 1969 one of the more interesting projects suggested by the association of Softs managers Ian Knight and Sean Murphy with Keith Albarn (yes, Damon from Blur's dad) was Peter Dockley's lunatic multimedia show at the Roundhouse, Spaced. Ballet dancers and ex-army gymnasts (and you don't get a much more incongruous mix than that) were choreographed to bound about all over a geodesic structure made of construction scaffolding. Commonplace nowadays, of course, but still fairly freaky then. They wore wonderful rubber costumes with octopus suckers up and down their arms and legs.

They wanted a backing tape of suitably deranged and doomy sounds, so we recorded chunks of music as a trio, in a converted warehouse in London's deserted ex-docklands that we used for rehearsals. (It wasn't a chic yuppie area in those days, it was grim: dead cats floating in the weed-choked docks and so on.) My brother Brian came up at the weekend to add some sax blasts here and there, and we then spent a week or more playing around with tape loops and ancient mechanical aids to produce an hour and a half of finished tape. Now of course with a computer you could do the whole thing in an afternoon, but in those analog days it was strictly scissors and tape. And lots of third-generation hiss. However, we knew we could ask our captive recording engineer Bob Woolford to do the weirdest things with his Stellavoxes and Brenells and Ferrographs - he was open to trying the unorthodox. Which is perhaps why Bob is now living a fulfilled life in the snowy hills of Connecticut pretending to be a bicycle repair man and not a boring record company executive. And it's thanks to Mike King, author of the Robert Wyatt biography Wrong Movements who tracked Bob down.

I don't recall the week-long show taking London by storm. One review said something like "...accompanied by clanking noises from The Soft Machine." Aggrieved punters complained that they were expecting a live Soft Machine concert. Halfway through the run the management pleaded with us to come on and do a short live spot during the show, but we felt we had already contributed an honest chunk of our creative lives to the project.

The show didn't transfer to Broadway, but a BBC arts program ran a short televised excerpt to publicize it. Using Pink Floyd as a backing track.

The version here has been fairly radically edited – the original had long building and fading sections to go with the onstage action and to usher the unsuspecting audience into the Roundhouse. Very long, some of those sections, believe me..."
–Hugh Hopper France, February, 1996

credits

released October 23, 1996

Hugh Hopper bass
Mike Ratledge electric piano, organ
Robert Wyatt drums
with
Brian Hopper saxophones

Recorded by Bob Woolford in 1969.

All titles written by Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge & Robert Wyatt except “Spaced Five” by Brian Hopper & Mike Ratledge.

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Cuneiform Records Washington, D.C.

Cuneiform Records is an independent record label releasing adventurous, boundary-bursting music by artists from around the world.

Founded in 1984.
Based in Washington D.C.

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