
Soft Machine is one of the greatest UK avant/jazz-rock bands of all time. 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’ groups, 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 pigeon holed and can move from powerful progressive jazz fusion to atmospheric psychedelia to free improvised jazz-rock to ambient loop music, continues to make it both unique and totally contemporary. Soft Machine is: John Etheridge – guitar; Theo Travis – saxophones, flute, keyboards; Fred Thelonious Baker – bass; Asaf Sirkis – drums. New album ‘Thirteen’ released 13 March 2026
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