Soft Machine

Wednesday 13th November 2024

Soft Machine, from their earliest performances as a psychedelic band – who were contemporaries of, and shared stages with 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 hippest 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 continues to make it both unique and totally contemporary. 

The band features 1970s band member (and No. 1 Spin guest!) John Etheridge on guitar, Theo Travis on saxes, flutes and keys, Fred T Baker on bass and Asaf Sirkis on drums. The band’s latest album ‘Other Doors’ has received rave reviews worldwide. 

This is an extremely rare appearance of Soft Machine in Oxford.

‘This isn’t a nostalgia or revival band but a very vital unit, contemporary and alert, consistently humane, still capable of surprise and delight’ – The Wire (Brian Morton)

‘The band, of course, has a broad palette — from Metheny-like jazz-rock to anything-goes improvisation; from pastoral passages with Etheridge on acoustic to an ambient flutescape from Travis. Compact and to the point, nothing overstays its welcome.’   - The Times  

‘No band of this vintage have any right to still sound so fearless and ferocious. Don’t miss them!   - PROG Magazine 

For more on the band, please see www.softmachine.org