SEVEN

Soft Machine finally made a pretty straight jazz album on their seventh album. Gone is the magic weirdness from the Third and the Fourth album. The avant-garde elements from Fifth is also missing here. Seven is a continuation from disc 2 of the Six album. The Soft Machine is threading water on this album.

That is not necessary a bad thing, music wise. The music on Seven is actually good. The jazz is appealing, although a bit one dimentional. Most of the music here is laid back and a bit too repetetive. Karl Jenkins does a wind instrument impro solo and is backed up by Mike Ratledge on keyboard in the background as the basic melody. This is repeated over and over again on different melodies. I have to admit I like this music. It is easy on the ear where Third was one big camel of a challenge for me.

Seven is a good album, but I still miss the weirdness from Third.

3 stars