Take Soft Machine and translate the two words into French and you'll more than likely (there may be other translations and my High School French isn't what it was forty years ago) and you've got machine molle. Anglicise that (slightly) and you'll end up with the name of ex-Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt's post-Softs jazz-rock quartet.
Summary
File under:
Discography:
In the music library:
Links: Official web site Twitter Facebook
Iconic.
Essential.
Outstanding.
Interesting.
Intriguing.
Significant.
Obscure.
There was a solo album (The End of an Ear) in between Soft Machine and Matching Mole, formed in October 1971 with Wyatt in his familiar role on drums and vocals, Caravan's David Sinclair on organ and piano, Phil Miller on guitar and Bill MacCormick, (ex- Quiet Sun) on bass.
Two studio albums, the eponymous debut first largely Wyatt-written and Matching Mole's Little Red Record, more of a collaborative effort were supposed to be followed by a third with a new line up when Wyatt's accident that left him paralysed from the waist down and that was that as far as the drumming was concerned. In between the two albums, Dave MacRae had replaced Sinclair on keyboards.
The original quartet disbanded in September 1972 after a tour of Europe. Sinclair and Miller had headed over to form Hatfield and the North and the third incarnation of Matching Mole Mark was going to match Wyatt and MacCormick up with keyboardist Francis Monkman (ex-Curved Air ) and saxophonist Gary Windo, but the accident put paid to that.
Heavy on collective instrumental improvisation and rather light on for vocal oddities (though they are there in places) the discography was padded out by subsequent live releases with Smoke Signals and March being recorded live in Europe and the rest, as the names suggest) drawn from sessions for the BBC.