Pataphysical Introduction Pt 1/A Concise British Alphabet Pt 1/Hibou Anemone & Bear/A Concise British Alphabet Pt 2/Hulloder/Dada Was Here/Thank You Pierrot Lunaire/Have You Ever Bean Green/ Pataphysical Introduction Pt 2/Out Of Tunes/As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still/Dedicated To You But You Weren’t Listening/Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging/Pig/Orange Skin Food/A Door Opens & Closes/10:30 Returns To The Bedroom
Follow up album from Canterbury’s Soft Machine whose music might be described as progressive jazz fusion. It is highly experimental comprising two long instrumentals interspersed with shorter interludes.
“Including two epics, Rivmic Melodies, which takes up the entire first side, and the mostly-instrumental Esther's Nose Job. Incorporating a heavy dose of jazz into their sound, The Softs defined their own unique variety of fusion.”
“I can understand being experimental. I can understand being cryptic or obtuse. But what are you shooting for when you recite the alphabet? The music is somewhat interesting. A fair attempt, but their Third is much better.”
“A stream-of-consciousness set to music. My favourite in their discography. Jazzy psychedelic, arrogantly intellectual and typically British.”
“The Soft Machine’s Volume Two is one of the most unique and eccentric British LPs from the late 60s. On this album they co-habit quite comfortably whereas, on Third, the house is partitioned and they live separately. Still, it's this blending of instrumental virtuosity and British absurdist humour that laid the foundation of the Canterbury style. Other groups may have done it better, but this was the blueprint.”
“This is not a very long album and can be experienced as one long track with interlocking parts. Instrumental passages and fragments act as a glue to pull together a handful of ingenious songs, incorporating them into something that is, perhaps, greater than the sum of its parts. Not that there's anything dressed-up about it, the avant-garde sections complement perfectly the more structured parts. It also helps that side one and two both start out with a common theme, and that Wyatt sometimes comments on the music.”
“Volume 2 perfectly balances the psychedelia of their debut with the jazz-rock leanings of the follow up Third.”
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