BUNDLES

(eighth in a serie of eleven)

4.5 stars really!!! Wow after an almost two year gap the Machine is back and what a slap this album was. The fact that they had changed label (now on the superb Harvest) and a new musical direction (their previous one had come to a dead-end) makes this album a must for anyone into fusion music.The great return of the guitar (and what a Guitar) as it had been absent since the very first (prototype) album with Daevid Allen. By now , the music on this album does not have much in common with Third either as everyone of those album moved a little further in this implacable musical direction. Holdsworth (yet another ex-Nucleus man) really brings two dimensions absent in previous album: energy and a different writing possibility (due to the particularity of the guitar). However it is now clear that the man behind the driving wheel is Karl Jenkins (both on KB and reeds) as he pens to himself the side-long suite on the first side. Side 2 is more eclectic both in terms of writers but also musical contents. We are once again "blessed" with a Marshall drum solo.

If most purists are dismissing the Soft Machine album after Third, this one and Softs should be played to them to understand that the psychadelic caterpillar has now become the flamboyant fusion butterfly.