The Soft Machine - The Soft Machine (1968)

Well after a fairly long leave of absence I am back with a lot of stuff to post for all of you who are still hanging around and waiting patiently. The album today is the band "The Soft Machine" first album which is self-titled. The album was released in 1968 on the One Way label. This like Pink Floyd's "Piper At the Gates of Dawn" is an psych album of the 1960's that actually delivered on what it built the listeners up for. Even though the band was never really a huge commercial success they still built and maintain quite a cult-following until this day. Their sound had influence on many other bands as well such as Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Egg, and FM. They were also one of the original British psych bands.

The sound on this album is really a jazz/pop/psych fusion that really works on all fronts. You will notice that they do bear an amazing resemble to a lot of the bands of that time. They seem to encompass a lot of different elements that they share with many other bands of that time. The music though is very, like stated earlier, psych/pop/jazz oriented and you can hear it from song one until the end. It has a very improvish-psych feel to it where there really is no rhyme or reason to go along with the music. They are seemingly just flying from the seat of their pants in a fairly jam-based, improv playing style. I am not trying to say that this is a bad thing, because it is a really great thing when it is done right, much like "The Soft Machine" do on this debut album. It is definitely an album to pick up if you like older bands like Pink Floyd and Tomorrows, or even if you like the newer bands like Medeski, Martin & Wood or Galactic.

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