Robert Wyatt is the reason why I recommend (to prog-rock aficionados) to buy this 4-LP record: here you hear him at 100% of his ability as a drummer, right before the accident that paralysed his legs. And we feel from listening to the music (!!!) what the audience (accordingly to the press release) perceived from the glances thrown between the protagonists. In plain words, there was A WAR between Wyatt and Ratledge.

 

This album explains it perfectly. Ratledge (with pieces from "Third", the just released "Fourth" and All White and Pigling Band from the future "Fifth") imagined SM as a band with a lot of written material, a clean sound and relatively little improvisation. Wyatt, on the other hand, here is as furious as a lion in a cage: whenever he can, he "goes tom toms all the way" - as it happens under the melody in Pigling Bland - or uses his snare drum to generate literal 'parallel sound environments' in open clash with Ratledge's (hear for instance Teeth.) And, if you have an ear for these things, at times the war even offers a few funny moments, making me laugh out loud: as it is the case when Ratledge cuts Wyatt's solo short due to the (drumming) noise that Wyatt had previously created underneath Ratledge's solo.

 

I could easily imagine the arguments in the dressing room after a gig like this.

 

While Ratledge appears to be unable to stand Wyatt's "joy de vivre," Wyatt's creativity here is thriving. In fact he was soon to create Matching Mole and start a great solo career. And in this fateful night, he vastly contributes to expand the Soft Machine soundscape with his "Ratledge non-compliant" drum grooves, which still sound fresh and so... diverse! His drumming at Høvikodden's is giving us one more reason to befriend Wyatt's aural companionship.

 

"Høvikodden 1971" is a "must" for any prog-rock and/or Wyatt lovers.

 

 

(...)