What are my favorite new albums this year? Glad you asked. So far, the new Soft Machine album, Thirteen, seems to occupy my top slot.
The varied instrumentals are already comfortably familiar, like those of a much older fave, while still hovering in a niche between jazz-rock and outright fusion.
By now, the band's long-evolved membership is no longer a particular issue, they remain the living legacy of what was started nearly 60 years ago.
Guitarists Jon Etheridge's melodic leads flow with improvisational skill, drawing the band through graceful chord progressions. Their brand is possibly the most appropriate genre to be represented by old geezers today, being survivors of a British scene that has always been considered outside the greater world of American Jazz.
Here's a fine single representing the album: at YouTube.
Here's an actual performance in Andy Edwards' studio loft: also at YouTube.
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