“Third”, the embodiment of the Canterbury Scene, is an album which no one expected at the time. Kevin Ayers had left Soft Machine and a lot has changed about their sound. The band traded the format of short and clear songs to 18-20 minutes long avant-jazz-prog-rock compositions.

The album starts with the live recording “Facelift”, and organ player Mike Ratledge with a very distinct sound to it, and it plunges you directly into the heart of the album. It is arrhythmic, atonal, amelodic, aeveryhting. Soft Machine does not want you to listen to it as music with notes and theory – but as sound, as soundscapes. Slowly, saxophones and trombones start appearing, until drummer Robert Wyatt gives this composition a groove and outlines its main theme. The track continues to get more and more crazy as time goes on, with its fast rhythms and its tight synergy between the saxophone and the keyboard. While it seems hard to digest, there is a flute solo in the middle of the song, which is supposed to allow you to breathe again, even if it is just for a minute and a half. Right after, the song starts again with full force, back into its main theme for another 5 minutes until the song closes with squeals of an analog tape and the song playing backwards.

On “Slightly All The Time”, you can hear a clear Miles Davis influence, and is reminiscent of ‘Bitches Brew’, released only a few months prior to ‘Third’. While it has a relaxing theme and it is much less aggressive than “Facelift”, it is still just as energetic and fun with its “Free Jazz” passages and its changing sections. Free Jazz in quotations, since it develops different melodies and sections which are rather hard to understand and often sound like Free Jazz to a lot of ears when not paying close attention. While the piece undergoes several changes over the course of its whopping 18 minutes, it starts rocking out in the last few minutes, changing from a Jazz-centred piece to a fast and groovy Jazz-Rock piece.

“Moon In June” is the only number where Robert Wyatt sings, which has two wonderful advantages. Firstly, hearing such an organic sound after 40 minutes of instrumental craziness is surprisingly calming, even if the instrumental here pulls a few punches in some cases for the first half of the song. Secondly, I do not have to constantly correct myself accidentally writing “song” repeatedly. The vocals give the song a humane touch, and the sound is reminiscent of their previous albums. The structures are far more rhythmic and easier to digest. Mike Ratledge uses distortion to resemble a fuzz guitar and it leads into a prog section with a unique synergy between the bass and the drums, ending in 5 minutes of interesting soundscapes.

The last track, 60 minutes in, “Out Bloody Rageous”, starts up with soothing electronic astral sounds and ends in yet another Jazz-Prog-Fusion, though much more collected than the previous pieces, which then leads into a Jazz section and ends in trippy keyboard loops. A perfect way to end the album, it shows you exactly what the album is all about, from psychedelic soundscapes to fast prog and calm Jazz sections. It has just about everything which makes this album so unique.

While it takes some time to be able to digest the album, it is a worthwhile investment. It is unlike anything released prior to this album and has since gained a reputation for being the face of the Canterbury Scene. While it may not be the best introduction to the band, it is certainly their magnum opus.

Final Score: 10/10