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15 October 2003
Soft Works, Abracadabra (Tone Center)
What a pleasant surprise! Survivors of the original "Canterbury Scene" prog-rockers the Soft Machine return with an album that should delight their long-term fans and generate new interest in the jazziest and most free-form of the psychedelic era's UK representatives. From the Terry Riley-esque keyboard opening to the closing trippiness of "Madame Vintage", Elton Dean, Allan Holdsworth, Hugh Hopper, and John Marshall make the best case I've yet heard for the continuing validity of this type of music. It is not exactly groundbreaking stuff, being basically Coltrane-influenced sax over an articulate rock backing, but it really works. Hopper is a wonderfully assured bassist, and Dean is a much more inventive sax player than he used to be, while Holdsworth's keyboard and guitar work have a glorious sense of space and texture to them. Drummer Marshall has a lightness of touch, which is usually so lacking in rock, and plays no small part in the album's success. Although all members have plenty of opportunity, Dean takes the majority of solos and the lead melodic lines. This makes it more of a jazz-oriented session than it otherwise might have been and it may be that the ideal audience for the group now comes from that area. Highlights include the title track and the self-explanatory "First Trane", but I can assure you that this is a mellow but exploratory set worth hearing in its entirety.
— Maurice Bottomley
.: posted by Editor 10:54 AM
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