This magnificent Soft Machine album is marked by the strong tension between the psychedelic side of the band, represented by Robert Wyatt, and the jazzy cares of bassist Hugh Hooper and keyboard player Mike Ratledge. It is precisely the struggle of these egos that makes this album a disturbing display of jazz-rock and psychedelia. In addition, by this time Soft Machine had a long history behind them and they had lost two of its founding members, the charismatic Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen.
"Third" was recorded live in Birmingham in 1970, with a solid base of wind players, with Elton Dean on sax, Lyn Dobson on flute and soprano sax, Nick Evans on trombone, Jimmy Hastings on flute and Violinist Rab Spall, noted for his raw and experimental sound, in a sound and compositional search on songs like 'Facelift', 'Slightly All The Time' and 'Out Bloody-Rageous', plus Wyatt's beautiful composition,' Moon in June ', undoubtedly the closest to the Soft Machine of their first two albums.
"Third" represented the transitional album, where they abandon the song format for long compositions in which they mix classical and electric instruments and in which they investigate open structures that allow improvisation, Ratledge´s keyboard solos, Elton Dean's sax, Hooper's distorted bass, and Wyatt's processed vocals are essential features of this outstanding album.
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