Soft Machine – Softs

A very accessible album compared to most of their output.

Personaly i would describe this more of a insider album. At the time it was released complex music like this was only mostly heard by weed heads with open ears and fat hifi gear. Well,personaly i fell in love with it the first time i heard it and im exactly
still there now emotionaly 41 years later.

Way better than I expected it to be. True, the last true Soft Machine album was Bundles, because Mike Ratledge was still present, but by then he was the only original member left. With the next album, Softs, it's clear who is in control and that was Karl Jenkins. To me, post Robert Wyatt Soft Machine does not always get the most respect, many felt they became more of a generic fusion group, which I couldn't agree on. But without Mike Ratledge, it's basically the final nail on the coffin, at least with popular opinion. Yet when I hear it, I was simply amazed. With Allan Holdsworth out of the picture (he never sticks to one group or artist for long), they brought in John Etheridge, who really gave some super-fast guitar leads. Rick Wakeman's cousin Alan Wakeman provides sax, while Karl Jenkins sticks mainly to synths, but also saxes. I really love the approach they do here, at times the group is almost electronic, especially during those synth ages. There are some just unbelievably fast and intense ages white Etheridge playing guitar like there's no tomorrow, and same for John Marshall's drumming. I obviously didn't expect this to be another Third, and definitely not like the first two albums, and of course, you shouldn't expect the same as what the Soft Machine was doing 1968-70. I think if this was released as a Karl Jenkins solo album, rather than Soft Machine, I think it would get more respect. But the many progheads had jumped ship with Soft Machine long ago (about the time Robert Wyatt left), but fans of fusion certainly stayed on, and this is an (much better than I expected it to be) example.