Pioneering British Experimental Rockers Land At Freight & Salvage

By Dave Pehling

BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- An early exponent of British psychedelia featuring three talented songwriters before moving into a more instrumental jazz fusion direction, reformed progressive rock outfit the Soft Machine brings its first U.S. tour in decades to the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley Thursday.

With roots dating back to the early 1960s when guitarist/songwriter Daevid Allen led a trio featuring drummer/singer Robert Wyatt and bassist Hugh Hopper, the Soft Machine officially came together in 1966 around Wyatt, Allen, bassist Kevin Ayers (who previously played in Wilde Flowers with Wyatt and Hopper) and keyboard player Mike Ratledge. Exploring a mix of whimsical psychedelic pop and jazz-influenced rock, the group became one of the central bands of the rising Canterbury scene along with contemporaries Caravan. With the success of their first single "Love Makes Sweet Music," the band quickly built a following playing venues in the London underground like the UFO Club and Middle Earth.

After a successful run of shows in Paris, Australian citizen Allen would be denied re-entry to England, leading him to depart for France to form his own equally influential band, Gong. That left Wyatt, Ayers and Ratledge to continue as a far less pop-minded experimental trio, recording their debut album that would later be hailed as one of the early cornerstones of British progressive rock. The band would tour the U.S. with Jimi Hendrix (who they shared management with), at one point bringing on future guitarist for the Police Andy Summers on board.

That version of the group would not last, with Ayers demanding Summers be fired before eventually leaving the band himself to start his solo career. After disbanding for a time, the Soft Machine reformed to fulfill contractual obligations with Hopper taking over on bass for the more jazz leaning second album Volume 2 that featured two complex, multi-part suites that nodded heavily to the admitted influence of Frank Zappa. The group expanded its line-up to feature horn players for their 1970 double album Third -- which broke them to a wider audience in the U.S. and remains their biggest selling effort in the States -- and it's completely instrumental follow-up 4, which was dominated by Ratledge's songwriting. The latter album would be the last to feature Wyatt before he too departed, founding the experimental group Matching Mole and a subsequent celebrated solo career (despite an accidental fall from a window in 1973 that left him paralyzed from the waist down).

The band would continue on in an entirely instrumental jazz fusion direction, despite a steady turnover of membership that would eventually leave Ratledge as the only principle player from the earlier line-ups until he too departed after the 1975 album Bundles (also notable as the first and only Soft Machine album to feature British guitar great Allan Holdsworth). Multi-instrumentalist Karl Jenkins took over the leadership of the group, maintaining it's cult following in England and Europe until Soft Machine finally dissolved in 1984.

The outfit would remain dormant until Hopper and longtime drummer John Marshall (who had replaced Wyatt in 1971) convened a new line-up and began playing the band's classic early '70s material under the name Soft Ware in 1999. That group would morph into Soft Works with returning guitarist Holdsworth in 2002, but within a few years, Holdsworth had again moved on as Marshall and Hopper adopted the name Soft Machine Legacy for the ensemble. The band released several albums and performed regularly over the next decade, though Hopper would step aside after being diagnosed with leukemia, eventually passing away in 2009.

A few years ago, the band's current line-up of Marshall, guitarist John Etheridge, bassist Roy Babbington (both who played in the band during the '70s) and saxophone/flute/piano player Theo Travis (best known for his work with Porcupine Tree leader Steven Wilson and King Crimson founder Robert Fripp) announced they would reverted to the name Soft Machine. Last year, the quartet began what would be it's most extensive touring in decades to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the group as well as the release of Hidden Details, the first studio recording by Soft Machine since 1981. The band comes to Freight & Salvage in Berkeley as part of the West Coast leg of the current tour Thursday night. Opening act the Levin Brothers features powerhouse bassist and longtime member of King Crimson Tony Levin playing more jazz-oriented material in a duo with his piano-playing sibling, Pete Levin.

Soft Machine
Thursday, January 24, 8 p.m. $34-$38
Freight & Salvage