Soft Machine is one of the greatest UK avant/jazz-rock bands of all time. From early performances as a psychedelic band when they 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, Soft Machine has influenced several generations of bands and continues to be name-checked by today’s hip experimentalists.
The band includes two members of the celebrated 70s version of the legendary group which recorded the acclaimed Softs album in 1975, completed by outstanding sax star Theo Travis (Robert Fripp, David Gilmour, Gong) and drummer Asaf Sirkis (Jacob Collier, Larry Coryell). They play material from the era (compositions by Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge and Karl Jenkins), as well as many contemporary works as featured on their album Hidden Details, which was released in 2018 - exactly 50 years since the release of the band’s 1968 debut album The Soft Machine.
Whilst the line-up of Soft Machine may have changed many times since the heady days of the late 1960s, the band’s spirit of musical adventure and the ease with which it freely avoids being pigeon-holed and can move from powerful progressive jazz fusion to atmospheric psychedelia, free improvised jazz-rock and ambient loop music, continues to make it both unique and totally contemporary. The band’s latest album, Other Doors, continues to push these envelopes.
Featuring John Etheridge (guitar), Theo Travis (tenor sax, flute and keyboards), Fred Baker (bass) and Asaf Sirkis (drums).
“Soft Machine were the grooviest, coolest psychedelic band of the era”
“A lush widescreen and instrumental adventure bathed in spacious, sonic light”
“The band, of course, has a broad palette — from Metheny-like jazz-rock to anything-goes improvisation; from pastoral passages with Etheridge on acoustic to an ambient flutescape from Travis”
Doors 7pm / Music 8.30pm / Tickets £22
All seating/tables are first come first served.