Elton Dean - Alto sax, saxello Lyn Dobson - Soprano and tenor sax, flute, harmonica, vocals Hugh Hopper – Bass Mike Ratledge - Hohner Pianet, Lowrey Holiday Deluxe organ
Robert Wyatt - Drums, vocals
From their beginnings as a psychedelic rock band in 1966, sharing stages with Pink Floyd and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to being one of the originators of electric jazz/rock by early 1969, Britain"s Soft Machine were restlessly creative. Facelift France and Holland captures them at a pivotal moment in the first quarter of 1970 as a short-lived quintet, just before they recorded and released their breakthrough album Third.
As broadcast on the French TV programme Pop 2, the film of Soft Machine"s concert at Paris" Théâtre de la Musique, which constitutes the main course of this release, stands as an exceptional document of the band at, arguably, its artistic peak. It is the earliest footage of the band to be commercially released and also the only video footage known to exist of the quintet line-up that was active from January to March 1970, and contains the only professionally-recorded performance of "Out-Bloody-Rageous" with Lyn Dobson on second sax. It also is the only professionally-recorded alternative performance by the quintet of "Facelift" (the original appearing as the opening track on Third).
In addition to the March, 1970 material presented here on CD and DVD in splendid stereo sound, Disc 3 presents a previously unreleased performance at Amsterdam"s Concertgebouw from January 1970.
