Album at a glance
The case for the album
Why this album matters
Third turns a double LP into four independent side-long compositions. Soft Machine had already been moving away from psychedelic song form; here Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, Robert Wyatt and Elton Dean make jazz development, rock amplification, tape construction and collective improvisation parts of one language.
The album is not stylistically uniform. “Facelift” is assembled partly from live recordings, “Slightly All the Time” develops a horn-led suite, “Moon in June” preserves Wyatt's songwriting and voice, and “Out-Bloody-Rageous” begins from layered tape loops. The format is unified; the compositional authorship remains audible.
Before the tape rolled
Historical and recording context
Hopper had joined Ratledge and Wyatt for Volume Two, and a short-lived expanded horn lineup followed. By Third, Elton Dean remained as the principal additional member, with several jazz guests appearing across the sessions. The band's official history describes the four-side suite form as the peak of its long-form development.
The album arrived during a period of growing European recognition. In August 1970 Soft Machine became the first rock group invited to perform at the BBC Proms. Yet Third also reveals internal divergence: Wyatt's vocal suite sits beside increasingly instrumental music that would dominate Fourth.
Players and production
Personnel and instruments
Mike Ratledge
Lowrey organ, Hohner Pianet and piano
Writes two suites and turns processed organ into both a lead instrument and a dense ensemble texture.
Hugh Hopper
Bass guitar
Uses fuzz, repetition and long melodic cells to connect rock weight with jazz development.
Robert Wyatt
Drums and vocals; organ, piano and bass guitar on “Moon in June”
Brings elastic drumming and the album's only extended sung composition, “Moon in June.”
Elton Dean
Alto saxophone and saxello
Gives the quartet its searching horn voice and much of its improvisational lift.
Lyn Dobson, Nick Evans, Jimmy Hastings and Rab Spall
Flute and soprano saxophone; trombone; flute and bass clarinet; violin
Appear on specific sides: Dobson on “Facelift”, Evans and Hastings on the Ratledge pieces, and Spall on “Moon in June”.
What to listen for
The sound
Ratledge's organ is frequently overdriven until chords become blocks of grain. Hopper's fuzz bass can merge with that register, leaving Dean's saxophone to cut a more human line through the electronics. Wyatt's drumming is loose in surface detail but highly responsive to form.
Tape is a compositional tool rather than a decorative effect. Live material is edited into “Facelift”; repeating keyboard loops establish “Out-Bloody-Rageous”; Wyatt constructs part of “Moon in June” largely by himself. The recording quality varies, but those changes in fidelity expose the album's hybrid origins.
The original running order
Track-by-track guide
Facelift
Written by Hugh Hopper
An ominous organ introduction gives way to concert material recorded at Fairfield Halls in Croydon on 4 January and Mothers Club in Birmingham on 11 January 1970. Hopper's edit repeatedly shifts between written ensemble figures, open playing and altered tape. Its joins are part of the design: Third announces itself as assembled experience, not a polished simulation of one studio performance.
Slightly All the Time
Written by Mike Ratledge
The second side offers the album's clearest jazz-suite flow. Dean's alto lines move through changing themes while Hopper and Wyatt keep the transitions buoyant. Quoted and related motifs pass through the arrangement, but the performance feels continuous because the rhythm section treats composition and improvisation as the same conversation.
Moon in June
Written by Robert Wyatt
Wyatt's last major vocal composition for Soft Machine begins with melodic fragments, surreal wordplay and the familiar intimacy of his voice. The suite gradually leaves conventional song behind; much of its later studio construction was performed by Wyatt, before the full band enters the closing stretch. Its tension between personal song and collective abstraction makes it the album's emotional hinge.
Out-Bloody-Rageous
Written by Mike Ratledge
Layered organ loops create an opening that anticipates later minimalist and electronic methods without abandoning jazz phrasing. When the band enters, Ratledge's themes and Dean's improvising voice reshape the repeating field. The closing return to loops makes the side feel less concluded than released back into process.
Ideas and atmosphere
Themes and concept
Third is not a lyrical concept album. Its coherence lies in scale and method: each composer is given a vinyl side, and each side asks how fixed material can generate extended development.
“Moon in June” introduces a personal, comic and melancholy voice absent from the other sides. That difference should be preserved rather than forced into a single thematic explanation.
The sleeve
Cover artwork and presentation
The minimal numbered sleeve treats the album almost as an entry in a sequence rather than an illustrated fantasy. That reserve directs attention to form: four sides, four compositions, one stark title.
On release
Release and contemporary reception
CBS released Third in Britain in 1970. It first entered the UK album chart on 4 July, reached number 18 and spent six weeks in the Top 100. Soft Machine's official history identifies it as the group's best-selling recording and notes that it remained in print in the United States for more than a decade.
The chart run accompanied the band's move from psychedelic club origins into European jazz and concert institutions, symbolised by the August 1970 Proms appearance.
After the first pressing
Reputation and legacy
Third became a defining Canterbury-scene album and a key document in the development of jazz rock. Its influence lies in the freedom to combine amplified rhythm-section weight, horns, long composition and tape without choosing a single genre identity.
The four-side format remains unusually revealing because it exposes different authorial methods inside one band. Later listeners can hear both the future instrumental Soft Machine and the path Wyatt would pursue outside it.
Which version?
Editions and listening notes
The original double-album sequence is essential. Remasters can clarify some detail but cannot make the mixed live and studio sources uniformly polished without changing their character.
Treat one side as a listening unit. Hearing all four at once is rewarding, but the original format also permits the pause each large composition needs.
A practical route in
Suggested listening path
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Soft Machine: A Brief HistorySoft Machine official website
- Third: UK chart historyOfficial Charts
- Third: track sequence and personnelBurning Shed release record
- Third: recording dates and detailed creditsMusicBrainz release record