Track Listing

1. Nettle Bed
2. Carol Ann
3. Day's Eye
4. Bone Fire
5. Tarabos
6. DIS
7. Snodland
8. Penny Hitch
9. Block
10. Down The Road
11. German Lesson
12. French Lesson

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39375 in Music
• Released on: 2007-02-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

CD Description
This was the first album after the departure of bassist Hugh Hopper, who was replaced by Roy Babbington. For anyone who's counting, it was the last of their seven sequentially numbered releases.
Reed player Karl Jenkins, who had joined the band on SIX, was by this time writing the bulk of the material. His pieces range from the fanfare of "Nettle Bed" tothe dreamy "Carol Ann", which evokes French composer Erik Satie. Founding member (and next to depart) Mike Ratledge contributes four numbers, including the hypnotic "Tarabos", which recalls the circular melodicism of the band's first two albums. Warmly and crisply recorded, SEVEN finds drummer JohnMarshall on especially good form, with his cymbal work cleanly articulated throughout.

Customer Reviews

Soft Spot
What! 5 stars you shout! Why it's a Soft Machine without the blessed Wyatt or St Kevin of Ayers - even Hopper's hopped it - Even (the now sadly departed), Elton Dean left - presumably out of shame, when it was discovered he had inadvertantly given his first name to a certain Mr John. You would have thought that someone in the band would have urged a reprisal name swap, called himself Reg Dean and carried on.

If you look at the books or listen to the critics they will say that the post Wyatt albums are em...rubbish. I believed them for some 25 years and missed out on great great music. On "Block" Mike Ratledge shows off his patented squall of a keyboard. Karl Jenkins bursts out of Nucleus (his previous band) and out-composes everyone else. Track one "Nettle Bed" cries out for a good remix by the Chemical Brothers (& if they do it after this review, I want a cut).

Honourable mentions go to John Marshall & Ray Babbington (Drum & Bass) for looking like Open University Mathematics lecturers (albeit Hip ones)thus fitting in with my view of the band when aged 13. Big up also to Phil Smee @ Waldo's who did the packaging and had the good sense to include (a) several Photos with Mike Ratledge's amazing hair/glasses/moustache combo that may still serve me well at any Fancy Dress night I'm invited to - "Can you guess - I play keyboards for a band named after a William Boroughs book?" Ladies will swoon and the lads will be mightily impressed.
& (b)The orange label - a classic 70's orange that you just don't see now.

I commend this CD to the house.

The last of the numbered (CBS) albums
This is a perfect reissue of this album. I like it more than ever listening to it again and the CD version I already had was pretty good. The only weakness I have found is in the tail end of Mark Powell's liner notes. He states that the Soft Machine Legacy that formed from ex-Softs included Karl Jenkins which it did not (although there were a couple of post-Land of Cockayne reformations that he was involved in. It was John Etheridge, along with Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean and John Marshall who formed the Legacy band. They have since continued with a non-softs replacement for the sadly departed Mr. Dean

This batch of reissues has prompted me to re-explore my Soft Machine collection. I have meny prized live albums particulary the BBC and Radio Bremen stuff. I have even given Softs and Alive and Well Recorded in paris another go and last night really enjoyed listening to the latter, which was always my least favourite of their albums (I think because of the final disco beat track)

To paraphrase Shrek, Soft machine are like onions, not because they stink (which they do not) but because they have many layers. I am increasingly attracted to their many different layers and this was another high point. Although I do also like the Harvest albums I wish they had kept the diversity of writing from across the band, displayed here, instead of it becoming a vehilcle for just a single memeber