ELASTIC ROCK

Before listening to Elastic Rock I confess I hadn't had any prior experience of Nucleus, and tended to think of them as "that band which most of the late-period Soft Machine lineup came from". I suspect that my distaste for the later Soft Machine albums ended up delaying me dabbling in the world of Nucleus, but Elastic Rock has forced me to think again. Ian Carr's trumpet is the secret ingredient which makes the whole experiment gel, but all the band members turn in good performances and offer an interesting Bitches Brew-influenced take on fusion which tends towards shorter, snappier tracks than most of the fusion crowd were working with at the time. Whilst I still think the amalgam of Soft Machine and Nucleus didn't quite work, I find the original Nucleus a much more tasty proposition.