Jazz Archives

Second album of Soft Heap where Pip Pyle had obligation elsewhere and he was replaced by Dave Sheen, thus Soft Head and the album Rogue Element, of which I'm sure, the elephant occupying the artwork is certainly aimed at. So this album was recorded the following year than the debut and released on the Ogun label, already familiar to progheads for Keith Tippett's works. This is the recording of gig in deep France.
Opening the album on the Dean-penned Seven For Lee, the album starts on a Soft Machine mode with Dean soaring over the rest of the band, but Gowen and Hopper are just behind Elton, making this track the easiest of the album. Hopper's seven Drones veers instantly into dissonant ground, proof that not only Dean was able to follow Marshall around the Machine's fifth album. Nothing too hard for the novice's ears with Gowan's soft electric piano bedding the track. More accessible is the Gowan-penned Remain So, a piano- dominated tune.
The flipside opens on CRRC, written by Alan, and last some 14 minutes, which is enough to let you know that he's a full member of Heap, despite having Gilgamesh still under way (with Hopper appearing), but the "tune" appears more real jazz than fusion or jazz-rock, the mid-song energy outburst not bringing much new. The closing One Three Nine is just more of the same as the album offered you so far.
Ogun released a Mini-Lp reissue of this album in 96, and had the luck to find two extra unreleased tracks (apparently from the same concert, since the ambiance and sound are the same as on the album) and included them as bonus on this release. The 17-mins Dean composition Ranovais a slow starting tune on piano, than sax with Sheen Hoppering on the train a while later. Not too dissonant, but definitely beyond the huge majority of Machine standards, but by Heap/Head standard, quite normal C You Again is really very slow and mega-dissonant, making this track the weaker point on the album, but it remains part off that night's concert.
So the two bonus tracks are excellent added value for the original album, which makes the new version lasting some 60 minutes, which is plenty enough and not lasting too long. I wouldn't call any Heap/Head album essential Canterbury scene music, but they are exactly the kind of albums that consolidate the genre.

:::Review by Sean Trane:::

Soft Heap - Rogue Element (1978)

1. Seven For Lee (8:51)
2. Seven Drones (4:25)
3. Remain So (4:48)
4. Terra Nova (16:52)

5. C You Again (4:13)

6. C.R.R.C. (14:00)
7. One Three Nine (6:33)

Credits
- Elton Dean / alto sax, saxello
- Alan Gowen / electric piano, synthesizer
- Hugh Hopper / bass guitar
- Dave Sheen / drums

After leaving Soft Machine after their fifth album (in 72), Elton dean returned to the jazz scene for a few years and created his own groups and projects like Just Us, Elton Dean Quartet and big band Ninesense. Around Jan 78, Soft Heap was created by him with ex- Hatfield and Gligamesh members Pip Pyle and Alan Gowan, and Elton thought of inviting his old buddy and ex-Machinist Hugh Hopper. Thus the name of the band being a bit of revenge, using the Soft part of the Machine, the Heap being their respective forename's first letter. (Thus Soft Head was the same, when Pyle was unavailable and they called upon Dave Shean). Sadly Esoteric Record did not find any extra tracks lying around for this album's only second reissue, but deliver some neat liner notes.
Starting slowly , as if from a Tery riley album, the gorgeous Circle Line is the only Hopper- penned track, but certainly the most poignant on this album, in no small part due to Elton's impression of Coltrane. The collective jamming AWOL is a much more furious affair, breathing Elton's intentions with Phil Howard's short tenure of the drum stool in Soft Machine. Demented and sometimes spacey, but never really totally dissonant either. Gowen's Petit 3's is a much quieter affair with the dominating electric piano, but the slow groove is evolving a bit in an early Nucleus lava stream, pouring down a volcano's cone. Cool yet torrid, but not reaching the apex you'd wish it had.
The flipside starts on the Terra Nova were the Softs would be meeting Coltrane on the way to Ascenscion, but not reaching the summit either, even though this is the album's best track. The other Dean composition Fara is a slow jazz, close to standard granddaddy jazz and it sticks out a bit from the rest of the album. Not even old Tippettt mate Mark Charig can bring much excitement to this crooning jazz track that's only missing Louis or Ella's vocals. The closing short Hand is a free-form jazz piece written by Gowan, and sticks out just as muchas its predecessor, but in the opposite direction. True enough, Soft Heap has the inevitable Soft machine traits, but you won't catch this writer to say that they were trying to revive a spirit, even though by now, the SM mothership had folded after much more line-up changes.
A very worthy one shot album from a group that would go on to record under this name but with different personnel, their debut remaining their best. Both owan and Pyle woud go on in National Health (this album was a bit delayed to that group's schedule), but today as I write this review, Soft Heap is the first prog group (let's put aside Jimi Hendrix Experience), with Hugh Hopper's death, this group is the first to extinct by all of its members, something I'd have rather not seen or known.

:::Review by Sean Trane :::

Soft Heap - Soft Heap (1979)

1. Circle Line (6:54)
2. A.W.O.L. (9:35)
3. Petit 3's (6:17)
4. Terra Nova (10:03)
5. Fara (6:42)
6. Short Hand (3:11)

Credits
- Hugh Hopper / bass
- Elton Dean / saxes
- Alan Gowen / keyboards
- Pip Pyle / drums and percussion
- Mark Charig / cornet and trumpet
- Radu Malfatti / trombone