Soft Machine
Thirteen
Label: Dyad Records
Genre: Post Rock / Avant Rock
Availability
- LP x2 €44.99 Dispatched within 5-10 working days
Soft Machine is one of the greatest UK avant/jazz-rock bands of all time. Originally one of the Canterbury Scene bands, their work, from their earliest performances as a psychedelic band who were contemporaries of, and shared stages with Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, all the way to being one of Europe’s best known ‘fusion’ bands has influenced several generations of bands, and continues to be name-checked by today’s hip experimentalists.
Whilst the line-up of Soft Machine may have changed many times since the heady days of the late 1960's, the band's spirit of musical adventure, and the ease with which it freely avoids being pigeonholed has stayed a constant – as it moves from powerful progressive jazz rock to atmospheric psychedelia to free improvised jazz to ambient loop music.
‘Thirteen’ features legendary guitarist John Etheridge who has been with the band over 50 years in superb form. Whilst all four members of the band contribute compositions, the album’s main composer is saxophonist, flautist and keyboard player Theo Travis who wrote six of the album’s thirteen tracks, including the longest most progressive track of the set ‘The Longest Night’ (clocking in at just over 13 minutes). The newest member of the group is drummer and composer Asaf Sirkis.
Former Soft Machine drummer and songwriter Robert Wyatt said of Asaf – “I’ve known Asaf’s gifts for years, certainly enough to say that as far as I can see there’s nothing he can’t do when he puts his mind to it.....his kit skills just keep expanding but what really gets to me are his ethereal, haunting compositions....”
The album is incredibly broad in its breadth and scope. Tracks include ‘Pens to the Foal Mode’ which is a completely free group improvisation; ‘Open Road’ a rocky track which sees the band soaring on all burners with fiery solos by both Etheridge. and Travis; the ballad ‘Disappear’ which starts with ethereal looped flutes and develops into a beautiful piano led and drum less miniature and ‘Turmoil’ penned by bassist Fred Baker which brims with deranged fuzz bass, manic solos and an almost unhinged clamor. ‘Daevid’s Special Cuppa’ sees a cameo by founder member Daevid Allen (his guitar part being recorded years earlier, and the track built around it) in a psychedelic tribal set piece with soprano sax, guitar and duduk (a haunting Armenian traditional wooden flute like instrument) floating over hypnotic rhythms.