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Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {Air Mail Japan MiniLP Blu-spec CD AIRAC-1668 rel 2012}

Posted By: ruskaval

Date: 10 Mar 2018 14:42:20

Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {Air Mail Japan MiniLP Blu-spec CD AIRAC-1668 rel 2012}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 299 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 106 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 376 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit remaster
© 1976, 2012 Air Mail Recordings Japan / Soft Machine | AIRAC-1668
Jazz / Jazz Rock / Canterbury Scene / Art Rock

Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Soft Machine featuring the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (compatible with standard CD players) and 2012 24-bit remastering. The cardboard sleeve faithfully replicates the UK LP. Includes a booklet written in English. Part of a three-album Soft Machine Blu-spec CD cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "Bundles," "Softs," and "Alive And Well Recorded In Paris." At this point in the band's history, Soft Machine might be considered an example of Theseus' paradox, akin to the original axe that George Washington used to cut down the cherry tree – original except that the head had been replaced three times and the handle twice. On Softs, Mike Ratledge, the only remaining original bandmember present on Bundles, the group's preceding Harvest LP, was relegated to guest status, contributing synthesizer to only two tracks, "Song of Aeolus" and "Ban-Ban Caliban."

Otherwise, keyboard duties now fell completely to Karl Jenkins, who joined the band prior to the recording of Six and had gradually taken over the conceptual reins as the Softs finished their tenure with Columbia and moved over to Harvest. On Softs more than ever before, Soft Machine was Jenkins' band; he composed fully seven of the LP's 11 tracks, making the album a vehicle for his own artistic conception. And yet, as Soft Machine albums go, this one is just fine, thank you. Jenkins had always put his own personal stamp on the material he wrote for the band, but he also retained elements of a Soft Machine style that emerged around the time Ratledge began penning LP side-long opuses on Third: a marriage of modalism and minimalism with simple but memorable themes in layered counterpoint and an occasional backdrop of rippling, echoey overdubbed electric keyboards, giving the music a trippy, trance-inducing quality. Nimble keyboard and reed solos were also an important element of the Soft Machine sound, although, as the band entered its Harvest fusion period, they tended to take a back seat to the work of fleet-fingered electric guitarists, first Allan Holdsworth on Bundles and then John Etheridge here.

With Etheridge proving that Holdsworth wasn't England's only blindingly fast fusion guitar riff-meister, and with new saxophonist Alan Wakeman being a somewhat heftier reedman than Jenkins, the Softs lineup was plenty strong enough in the soloing department, so Jenkins could concentrate on overdubbing an arsenal of keyboards to give the music its overall structure and mood. Meanwhile, the Roy Babbington (bass) and John Marshall (drums) rhythm-section team, intact since Seven, was as fine as ever, kicking the band into overdrive at the drop of a hi-hat. While Softs has plenty to satisfy the Canterbury and jazz-rock fusion fan, another stylistic element – new age – can be heard blowing in with the synthesized wind and strings of the slow and lovely "Song of Aeolus." A precarious balance is usually maintained and the music keeps its footing in jazz-rock, although Softs certainly has more polish than grit. Moments of subtlety and understatement, like the pastoral soprano saxophone and acoustic guitar duet of the opening "Aubade" and Etheridge's folk-jazz duet with himself on the album-closing "Etka," are balanced by passages of high drama, or perhaps grandiosity – so many layers of guitars and keyboards are piled onto the closing of "The Tale of Taliesin" (imagine the Beatles' "I Want You [She's So Heavy]" coda performed by Philip Glass) that one is tempted to shout, "Enough already!" But when the band gets it right – the careful buildup and breakdown of lovely themes on "Out of Season" and the ethnic fusion-tinged groove of "Ban-Ban Caliban," for example – Softs soars.

Personnel:
Roy Babbington – bass guitar
John Etheridge – acoustic and electric guitars
John Marshall – drums, percussion
Alan Wakeman – soprano and tenor saxophones
Karl Jenkins – piano, electric piano, pianette, string and Mini-Moog synthesizers, orchestrations
Mike Ratledge – synthesizer

tracklist:
01 - Aubade
02 - The Tale Of Taliesin
03 - Ban-Ban Caliban
04 - Song Of Aeolus
05 - Out Of Season
06 - Second Bundle
07 - Kayoo
08 - The Camden Tandem
09 - Nexus
10 - One Over The Eight
11 - Etika

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 10. January 2015, 10:27

Soft Machine / Softs

Used drive : ATAPI iHAS124 B Adapter: 2 ID: 1

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\FLAC Frontend\tools\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "ALBUM ARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "COMMENT=EAC Secure Mode, Test & Copy, AccurateRip, FLAC -8" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 1:51.61 | 0 | 8385
2 | 1:51.61 | 7:17.31 | 8386 | 41191
3 | 9:09.17 | 9:23.07 | 41192 | 83423
4 | 18:32.24 | 4:26.71 | 83424 | 103444
5 | 22:59.20 | 5:31.06 | 103445 | 128275
6 | 28:30.26 | 2:36.14 | 128276 | 139989
7 | 31:06.40 | 3:27.33 | 139990 | 155547
8 | 34:33.73 | 2:01.13 | 155548 | 164635
9 | 36:35.11 | 0:49.46 | 164636 | 168356
10 | 37:24.57 | 5:29.16 | 168357 | 193047
11 | 42:53.73 | 2:27.54 | 193048 | 204126

Track 1

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\01 - Aubade.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 56.0 %
Extraction speed 1.5 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8F28324B
Copy CRC 8F28324B
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\02 - The Tale Of Taliesin.wav

Peak level 97.9 %
Extraction speed 2.1 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 092772ED
Copy CRC 092772ED
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\03 - Ban-Ban Caliban.wav

Peak level 98.4 %
Extraction speed 2.4 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 1925F9A8
Copy CRC 1925F9A8
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\04 - Song Of Aeolus.wav

Peak level 97.5 %
Extraction speed 2.6 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 1DD1BA0B
Copy CRC 1DD1BA0B
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\05 - Out Of Season.wav

Peak level 96.9 %
Extraction speed 2.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0519B62E
Copy CRC 0519B62E
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\06 - Second Bundle.wav

Peak level 95.2 %
Extraction speed 2.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 04BB04F2
Copy CRC 04BB04F2
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 7

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\07 - Kayoo.wav

Peak level 97.3 %
Extraction speed 3.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4FAE5564
Copy CRC 4FAE5564
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 8

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\08 - The Camden Tandem.wav

Peak level 97.4 %
Extraction speed 2.1 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 4BEE0D50
Copy CRC 4BEE0D50
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 9

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\09 - Nexus.wav

Peak level 97.2 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 8038770E
Copy CRC 8038770E
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 10

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\10 - One Over The Eight.wav

Peak level 99.0 %
Extraction speed 3.4 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 236FC857
Copy CRC 236FC857
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

Track 11

Filename C:\Soft Machine - Softs (1976) {2012 Japan Mini LP Blu-spec CD Remaster}\11 - Etika.wav

Peak level 81.7 %
Extraction speed 2.5 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 28A5D658
Copy CRC 28A5D658
Track not present in AccurateRip database
Copy OK

None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

No errors occurred

End of status report

==== Log checksum F8A24F6ECA83B7118AA572FA99F58001C6E8188459F7A92CB49D7134C44FCB35 ====

===

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