Soft Machine - Breda Reactor (2004)

Recorded live in Breda, Netherlands in January of 1970, this double LP represents the only existing recording of a very rare and short-lived quintet version of the band. Sax/ flute player Lyn Dobson was the fifth member here, left over from the band’s days as a septet. Just three months later Dobson would move on, leaving the classic Ratledge-Dean-Hopper-Wyatt line-up in place. Dobson’s contributions to a 22-minute long version of Hopper’s “Facelift” as well as “Backwards” are of particular interest here, as is a tentative version of “Out-Bloody-Rageous”, which was still a work in progress at this stage.