Peachfuzz' recent post of Terry Riley's In C kinda took me for a ride down memory lane the last few days. This particular rendition of In C actually was the first 'contemporary' piece I ever heard, burned itself into my brains & ears, and set the doors of perception wide open. Once through these doors, there was no way back.
Before that, the groundwork had been done by British (free) jazz scene of those days (with Tippitt, McGregor, Tracey and the like), and the very diverse Canterbury scene, with its major representative, the Soft Machine.
Whereas I followed the way back to the source and beyond, the Soft Machine clearly stood in the middle of their times. Starting as a psychedelic beat band in the sixties, peaking as the experimental fusion band they were in the early seventies (under heavy influence of the emerging free jazz, contemporary electronical composers, minimalists such as Riley, and even dodecaphonists or serialists as Schoenberg or Boulez), eventually fading away into a drooling shopping music ensemble under the aetherical guidance of Karl 'Adieu' Jenkins.
Focus here of course is the Soft Machine at its peak (the core trio/quartet with Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, Robert Wyatt, and Elton Dean), exerting a huge influence on young composers-to-be in the areas of electronical, experimental and contemporary music as well as jazz.
Thus, presented today (and fulfulling my own request at avax's music request section) are the official albums Third to Six, three live bootlegs derived from audience cassette tapes (as usual in accordingly poor quality) and two mpegs, one at a German TV station (NDR, Beat Club), and the other containing live footage of the Dutch Kralingen Festival.
If any of you has the BBC recordings, or other bootlegs, feel free to share, in lossless please.

This cd is a curious release in several ways. As a 1990 re-issue of a 1968 recording, it has not been for sale commercially. It has been published by an Italian editor/publisher of geographical maps & books, presumably as a relational gift of some sort. It contains some exceptional contemporary piano works by Webern, Berio and Boulez, alongside a completely different chamber work by Bloch. The main focus here is of course Claude Helffer's (misspelled on the cover as 'Claude Helferr') interpretation of the first three composers, as Helffer is renowned for his recordings of Boulez, Xenakis, Ravel and Debussy.
Peculiar too is to notice how the Webern, Berio and Boulez pieces on this recording could easily be perceived as mutual extensions of one another, even though these composers clearly have developped their own musical voice. Although this release has a pejorative ring to it for being a compilation, you may want to check it out just the same.