Miles Davis - Agharta (1975)

Now that's a crazy album. Miles got more and more eccentric throughout the 1970s, and this album shows the total madness that was his concert at that time. 

Miles has often pointed out in interviews that the ensemble on this album was his favorite band. Playing rock with jazz musicians (Bitches Brew) served it's purpose for a while, but Miles wanted a band that could really rock, as well as play jazz, avant-garde and world music as well. The icing on the cake for Miles is that he finally found a guitar player who could do what the departed Jimi Hendrix could do, plus so much more.

This album finally brings together all the influences that Miles had been trying to bring together for years; Stockhausen's Asiatic suspended musical moments in time (moment form), Sly Stone's dramatic take it to the streets call to action world revolutionary party funk, searing acid rock guitar, Sun Ra's disciplined approach to group improvisation, Herbie Hancock's futuristic fusion and timeless classical music from Africa.
(js (Easy Money), Progarchives)




If you are captivated by free jazz, Can circa Tago Mago, early Tangerine Dream, spacey Sun Ra, Matching Mole or Zappa's more atonal extravaganzas, you may well be in hog heaven with this album but failing that, these air miles won't even refund your fare.
(ExittheLemming, Progarchives)

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Soft Machine Live at Paradiso 1969

"The drummer was also the band's vocalist, but not a singer with any ambitions of eclipsing Paul McCartney. I heard instead melodic conversations from someone who told strange tales of touring with Jimi Hendrix, and who concluded that living in the US is fine if you're white and like getting a suntan. These weren't songs with instrumental bridges so much as instrumentals with lyrical interludes."

Graham Bennett


"Soft Machine without woodwinds or electric guitars ? You are having a laugh !!!!
That was my first thought...... Then I started to listen to this album and I discovered a new dimension to one of my favorite bands. Something I did not think was possible.

Music wise, Robert Wyatt's vocals fills the space later to be occupied by woodwinds. His drumming is excellent too. Mike Ratledge is playing like a demon possessed and is the star on this live album. Hugh Hopper's bass is hovering menacing over and behind Mike Ratledge's keyboards."

toroddfuglesteg at Progarchives

This album is basically Soft Machine playing Volume 2 live. Wyatt still sang quite a lot, and his drum solo in the last track is devastating.

1. Hulloder (0:24)
2. Dada Was Here (8:21)
3. Thank You Pierrot Lunaire (0:45)
4. Have You Ever Been Green? (0:57)
5. Pataphysical Introduction Pt. II (1:00)
6. As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still (1:55)
7. Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging (2:17)
8. Hibou, Anemone And Bear (4:17)
9. Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging (reprise) (3:26)
10. Pig (4:21)
11. Orange Skin Food (0:15)
12. A Door Opens And Closes (1:18)
13. 10:30 Returns To The Beedroom (10:39)

- Mike Ratledge / electric piano, organ
- Hugh Hopper / bass
- Robert Wyatt / drums, vocals

Link in comments!

Soft Machine - Grides

A live album by Soft Machine, recorded at Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, 25/10/1970, some months after their Third album was released. Very good sound quality.


Ratledge's keyboard work is amongst the best (if not the best), I've heard from him. It reminds me that his playing skills, a great ability to improv, and also move the band in explosively different directions, was never matched by those more famous prog keyboardists who never risked major changes from concert to concert.
(Dick Heath, Progarchives)






First Set (Concertgebouw, 25-10-70) - 79:12


1. Facelift (6:59)
2. Virtually (15:34)
3. Out-Bloody-Rageous (8:12)
4. Neo-Caliban Grides (10:12)
5. Teeth (8:03)
6. Slightly All The Time (10:34)
7. Eamonn Andrews (1:36)
8. Ester's Nose Job (11:22)
9. Slightly All The Time/Noisette (6:43)


- Elton Dean / alto saxophone, saxello, electric piano
- Hugh Hopper / electric bass
- Mike Ratledge / electric piano, organ
- Robert Wyatt / drums, voice




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Steve Hillage - Green (1978)

 It's not Pink Floyd because it's way too optimistic. Hillage was high on his new age vibes, and it really works for me. All of the delays and bells and weird riffs take me floating.
(from a commentary on a blog)



1 - Sea Nature
2 - Ether Ships
3 - Musick of the Trees
4 - Palm Trees (Love Guitar)
5 - Unidentified (Flying Being)
6 - U.F.O. over Paris
7 - Leylines to Glassdom
8 - Crystal City
9 - Activation Meditation
10 - The Glorious Om Riff

bonus tracks for CD release 2007
11 - Unidentified (Flying Being) – Live at Glastonbury 1979
12 - Not Fade Away (Glid Forever) – Live at The Rainbow Theatre 1977
13 - Octave Doctors – Live at Glastonbury 1979
14 - Meditation of the Snake [alternative mix]

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Tomorrow - Tomorrow (1968)

London, 1967. Dozens of bands play psychedelic gigs all over the city: Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Traffic and... Tomorrow. This band, nowadays mostly remembered because Steve Howe went on to join Yes and become one of the greatest guitarists of the 70's, was one of the leaders of the London scene.
Their only album, released in 1968 (thought it contains singles from 1967: My White Bicycle and Revolution), has all the elements from british psychedelia: baroque production with great use of stereo, whispering, backward and weird sounds, lyrics that might pass as nonsense, but have layers of meanings.
Revolution is one of the best singles of 1967, with crazy guitar and naive lyrics expressing the zeitgeist of the year (Lennon's Revolution, composed a year later, mocked the naivety of the whole revolution idea, and it was possibly, but not necessarily, an answer to this song).
Real Life Permanent Dream, despite its lush instrumentation including sitar, is an anti-psychedelia song, claiming a lifelong psychedelic trip would be unbearable, Now Your Time Has Come has Steve Howe moving from Syd Barret-like riffs to a long solo where his guitar sounds like a sitar, Three Jolly Little Dwarfs (a song for baby hippies, a BBC presenter said) may be too childlike to some, but don't miss the point, just listen to the album, from beginning to end, and you'll join the trip of Londoners from the 60's. "It's just a phase to people go through", Keith West sings, and he's right. But what a phase!

- Steve Howe / guitars
- John "Twink" Adler / drums
- Keith West / lead vocals
- Mark P. Wirtz / keyboards, percussion
- John Wood / bass

It can be downloaded here

Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed (1967)

A psychedelic experience has roughly the duration of a day (unlike the few hours of effects of alcohol and others). So it is natural that a band in 1967 would make an album about a day in the life (remember also the song by The Beatles), seemingly a common day but truly a special day.

From the start, when a god-like (old-fashioned, dated, ok, but who cares...) voice says:
Cold hearted orb that rules the night 
Removes the colours from our sight 
Red is gray and yellow, white 
But we decide which is right And which is an illusion


you know you're listening to a truly psychedelic album. What is reality, anyway?
Our hero gets delighted by all kinds of common things: the smell of grass (pun intended), time passing, children playing, twilight, love.

The feeling of hope about mankind and future is quite noticeable, which is a common feature of the 1960's:
Do you understand 
That all over this land 
There's a feeling 
In minds far and near 
Things are becoming clear 
With a meaning

When we get to make our mind clear, perhaps every common day may be an extraordinary day.

1. The Day Begins

2. Dawn (Dawn is a Feeling)

3. The Morning (Another Morning)

4. Lunch Break (Peak Hour)

5. The Afternoon

"Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)" "(Evening) Time to Get Away" 

6. Evening

"The Sunset" "Twilight Time" 

7. The Night

"Nights in White Satin" "Late Lament"

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