Back in the days before the
Cuneiform
and
Voiceprint
labels began issuing a host of archival
Soft Machine
music (including reasonably well-recorded live sets from the so-called "classic" period of the band), bootleg tapes -- often live audience recordings of poor quality -- circulated widely among
Softs
fans. One of those tapes was a mysterious "lost studio album" called
Rubber Riff
, and fans might be forgiven for enthusiastically seeking out a tape of this session, or at least displaying healthy curiosity about why
would record an entire studio LP that would then sit on the shelf, hidden well away from public ears. Granted, the recording was made by a
lineup from the group's mid-'70s "fusion" period, a band that practically no one viewed as "classic." Nevertheless, keyboardist/composer
Karl Jenkins
, drummer
John Marshall
, bassist
Roy Babbington
, and guitarist
John Etheridge
had proven themselves capable of kicking out a reasonably solid and occasionally even exciting jazz-rock/fusion effort,
, during the same early-1976 time frame that
was recorded, even if the last original
member, keyboardist
Mike Ratledge
, had departed the band for good and was relegated to "guest" status on that LP. So no one was expecting
to be another
Third
or
Fourth
, but another
Bundles
might not be out of the question.
Well, sorry folks, but those who managed to acquire a bootleg tape of
soon learned that the album was quite a different animal than even
. As author
Graham Bennett
points out in his
biography Out-Bloody-Rageous, at the time of its recording
was not intended to be a
release, despite featuring basically the same lineup as
(with overdubs from flutist
Ray Warleigh
added after the principal session had been completed). Rather,
is an album of "library music," 14 instrumental tracks averaging two to three minutes in length and intended to serve as a pleasant and unobtrusive background for various broadcast purposes. As drummer
Marshall
says in the book,
was looking toward his own future as a composer, and the
session was a helpful step for
Jenkins
in "getting his jingle assignments." That's not to say that the music isn't sometimes energetic, catchy, atmospheric, and even memorable -- although memorable as in the type of tune you'd like to force out of your head to make room for something more substantial. At least you can say that, in releasing
as a
album in 1994, the
label brought to the market a high-quality studio recording rather than a tape of dubious origin sounding like a cassette recorder had been left running on the seat of a cab, motor running and windows shut, waiting outside a venue where
,
Robert Wyatt
, and
Kevin Ayers
may or may not have been playing in 1968. Otherwise,
would be well suited as background music for the Weather Channel, conjuring up such deep thoughts as: "Sunny with a light breeze during the morning hours. Increasing cloudiness in the afternoon with the possibility of a brief shower. Total rain accumulation one-quarter inch. Afternoon high temperature 75 degrees. Clouds clearing by early evening. Overnight temperatures dropping to 60 degrees." Well now, that's rather pleasant indeed. ~ Dave Lynch