The engine of the Soft Machine

Mike Ratledge was the soul of Soft Machine. Yet it's rare to find such a claim in a history of rock music: he's more often portrayed, between the lines, as a glorified sideman or a talented performer serving other people's visions. And yet, if we want to honestly reconstruct the identity of one of the most elusive and erratic bands in British music, this is exactly where we need to start. While the line-up kept shedding its skin, Ratledge was always there, from the very beginning right through to the second half of the 1970s, and his sound is the constant that gave Soft Machine a recognisable voice, a sonic identity, a distinctive vision despite the constant flux.

For many, Soft Machine is synonymous with Robert Wyatt: the era with him on drums and vocals, which closed in 1971 with "Fourth", is regarded as the only truly significant one. The rest? A negligible jazz-rock drift, of interest only to genre die-hards. But who decided it had to be this way? Why is the story of Soft Machine reduced to an arc that peaks with the landmark "Third" and then simply fizzles out?

If we want to look at the band's musical legacy and artistic direction, the question is a different one: Soft Machine was shaped in large part by the hands of Mike Ratledge, their keyboardist for almost a decade and, from the early years onward, one of their principal composers (on "Third", for instance, he's credited on two of the four tracks). If the band's popular image doesn't revolve around him, it's largely because the dominant rock narrative favours charismatic figures, iconic personalities, tormented outsiders. Robert Wyatt is a perfect fit for that narrative, as is, to some extent, the elusive Kevin Ayers, who left the band after just the first album. Ratledge, no. He embodies none of the romantic clichés that feed pop mythology. But listen to the records, compare the live performances, and it becomes clear that without his contribution Soft Machine would never have existed in the form we know.

Sculptor of sound

The Lowrey organ run through fuzz. An instrumental voice that doesn't just fill space, but shatters it, redefines it. Something you literally feel in your body: vibrations that start low and rumble through you. A few seconds of "Facelift", on "Third", are enough to grasp it: a sonic invasion, one of the most alien moments ever put to tape.

Yet Ratledge's voice doesn't end there. His style is recognisable everywhere, whether in the minimalist textures of the Rhodes electric piano – those hypnotic repetitions that, from "Out-Bloody-Rageous" onward, become the liquid foundation of more and more tracks – or in the razor-sharp improvisations that give the music its nervy, unpredictable energy.

Anyone who saw one or more of Soft Machine's many incarnations live at the time can attest to the musician's centrality and to the dynamism of the band's sound, capable of shifting – always under the keyboardist's guidance – from ecstatic suspension to frantic zigzags across odd time signatures. Everyone else today has access to something that was missing back then: a huge amount of recorded live material, which has been surfacing in recent years, largely thanks to the shrewd but invaluable reissue campaign run by Cuneiform Records.

A perfect example is the performance at the "Ndr Jazz Workshop" on 17 May 1973, documented in both audio and video and released by Cuneiform in 2010. Here, the keyboardist doesn't just give shape to the band's sound through his distorted organ: you can hear him exploring every nuance of electric sound, switching between Rhodes, Clavinet and the ever-present Lowrey. It's one of the most powerful testaments to his musical direction within the band. And in the second half of the concert, the exchanges with Gary Boyle's guitar – one of the finest British fusion guitarists, known for his work with Isotope and Brian Auger – make the interplay even more incendiary.

Beyond the myth

In the early years of Soft Machine, songwriting was shared among several members, and reducing the band's musical identity to a single figure would be misleading. As time went on, however, an increasingly defined direction emerged. While Kevin Ayers still played a dominant role on the self-titled 1968 debut, by "Volume Two" the vision of Mike Ratledge and Hugh Hopper had already taken over. On "Third", the band's more singer-songwriter-driven side is still represented by "Moon In June", written and sung by Robert Wyatt, though by this point it's more of an isolated episode than the album's centre of gravity. On "Fourth", the orientation is by now entirely instrumental.

From that point on, Soft Machine's sound consolidated without losing any of its bite. The arrival of three former members of Ian Carr's Nucleus – John Marshall on drums, Roy Babbington on bass and Karl Jenkins on horns – pushed the band toward a more structured, markedly jazz-rock territory. But it's Ratledge, the only member left from the original line-up, who stamps this transformation with a distinctive direction, through his sound and his compositional ideas. British progressive jazz-rock of that era was a crowded field, from Nucleus to Isotope, from Brand X to If, from Colosseum II to Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia, all the way to Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone's Azimuth and Neil Ardley's orchestral projects, or the Canterbury-scene variants of National Health and the Gong of "Gazeuse!". Yet Ratledge's Soft Machine never blurs into that landscape: their path remains its own, marked by a singular sonic quest that finds its core precisely in the keyboardist's unmistakable contribution.

The live stage became the natural home for their music, and it's no accident that "Six" (1973) devotes an entire disc to live recordings, shot through with an electronic exploration that bears Ratledge's distinctive stamp. The same holds true for later documents such as "Switzerland 1974" (released in 2015) and "The Dutch Lesson" (recorded in October 1973, released in 2023), which show a band that, far from running out of steam, kept pushing into new expressive territory.

"Six" alternates long electronic improvisations with more structured sections. The album isn't just a snapshot of the band at one of its most balanced moments, but also proof of how their music, live, turns into a fluid organism, with almost imperceptible transitions between composition and improvisation. Where "Six" reveals the many facets of the band's sound in a relatively controlled setting, "Switzerland 1974" delivers a more aggressive, tense version of Soft Machine, helped along by the presence of Allan Holdsworth, whose guitar brings in a more virtuosic soloing element, sparking a tight dialogue with Ratledge's psychedelic sound. Here, the keyboardist proves he's not just a sonic pillar but the true architect of the band's dynamics, able to adapt and respond to his bandmates' impulses while remaining the group's sonic and artistic point of reference.

"The Dutch Lesson", finally, is an essential document for understanding the evolution of Soft Machine's sound under Ratledge's leadership: the set is marked by a remarkable synthesis of control and freedom, with moments where the sound seems to dissolve into electronic exploration and others where the groove tightens into something hypnotic and pulsing. On "Stanley Stamps Gibbon Album", for instance, Ratledge steers the band through an intricate 7/8 rhythmic pattern, while on "The Soft Weed Factor" his Rhodes weaves a dense, enveloping sonic carpet. It's a precious record of a period rich in experimentation and musical growth, in which Ratledge, while staying true to his sonic vision, kept surprising and innovating.

New Horizons

With "Bundles" (1975), Soft Machine shed their skin once again: the arrival of Allan Holdsworth brings guitar to the forefront, but even on that album the keyboardist's input remains decisive. Tracks like "Hazard Profile" show a perfect balance between Holdsworth's electric forays and Ratledge's hypnotic organ and synth textures. However, this is the last album on which the musician plays a fully active role. On "Softs" (1976), his contribution shrinks drastically: Karl Jenkins takes over musical direction, while Ratledge is reduced to a few appearances, effectively marking his exit from Soft Machine.

As emerges from his own words, Ratledge's decision to step aside had been brewing for some time:

I stopped writing music for five people to concentrate on something more personal. After "Six" I felt I should develop something that was truly my own. After that record, I became increasingly involved in things that had nothing to do with the band, and I grew less and less interested in composing. I think that, compared to the earlier period when I had to write because no one else would, now Karl is able to do it, and I was obviously able to stop.

(Mike Ratledge, interview in "Gong", 1977 – re-translated from English, as the original Italian could not be located).

The desire to explore new artistic directions, coupled with the search for a more personal dimension, had led him to gradually scale back his involvement in the band. On the other hand, Jenkins' growing compositional weight had, for the first time, made it possible to imagine the group continuing even without its last remaining founding member. Despite Ratledge's departure, Soft Machine carried on, without halting their evolution. The band's first live album, "Alive And Well", was recorded in 1977 and released the following year, and it captures a still decidedly fiery temperament, with new guitarist John Etheridge on excellent form and Ric Sanders' violin counterpoints. Over time, however, the lineup would embrace an increasingly smooth and progressively less jagged jazz-rock/fusion style, before dissolving in 1979 – though leaving the door open to possible reunions, such as the one that in 1981 gave rise to the enjoyable "Land Of Cockayne".

To listen back to Soft Machine without stopping at received wisdom is to recognise that if this band existed, and if it left such a deep mark on the history of music, the credit belongs above all to Mike Ratledge. And the stage, more than the recording studio, was where this alchemy truly came together. The numbers, after all, speak for themselves: Soft Machine were an extremely prolific live band, with a total of 540 confirmed shows throughout the 1970s (data from Setlist.fm). Significant figures, especially when compared with other leading names in the British progressive and jazz-rock scene: King Crimson (306), Caravan (310) or Henry Cow (152). Soft Machine's tally is even higher than Gong's (518), a band regarded as consummate live animals and central to the free festival scene. This intense live activity testifies to Soft Machine's ability to constantly reinvent themselves on stage, improvising, experimenting and surprising audiences with new sonic solutions. Ratledge, with his charismatic presence, his eclectic talent and his ability to focus on the gig itself, was one of the chief architects of this magic.

Ratledge's creative imprint did not fade after his split from Soft Machine. Following his departure from the band, the keyboardist continued to explore new musical territory, contributing to numerous records. Together with Karl Jenkins, he took part in the Rubba project, devoted to producing electronic library music and involving a range of different collaborators across several albums. The two continued to work together in other contexts as well, including arrangement and percussion programming for Jenkins' celebrated "Adiemus". Ratledge also worked with David Bedford, joining him as keyboardist on his album "Star Clusters, Nebulae & Places In Devon/ The Song Of The White Horse" (1983). And, once again alongside Jenkins, he took part in the space disco project Planet Earth, whose self-titled album was released in 1979.

Mike Ratledge's career was one long exploration, a journey through different genres and styles, always in search of new challenges and new stimuli. A sound designer avant la lettre even before he was a virtuoso, the keyboardist sculpted distortions, echoes and harmonics to shape unique, almost tactile atmospheres. Tones capable of splitting and enveloping, screaming and whispering, startling and enchanting. A visionary composer, a refined improviser, a discreet leader, he was a musician little inclined to the spotlight, yet capable of steering his band toward uncharted territory, especially during the period when his leadership became most pronounced. A period that deserves rediscovery for its creativity, the sharpness of its sound and the ambition of its constructions. A legacy to be heard with fresh ears.

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