Floating World Live

Track data is currently not available.

Performer: Soft Machine
Distributor: Griffin

Notes: Recorded for German radio in early 1975, FLOATING WORLD LIVE includes many of the compositions featured on the BUNDLES album released later that same year. By the mid-'70s, Soft Machine was a completely different band from the Dada-ist troupe that had emerged from Canterbury in the late 1960s. These pieces, mostly written by horn and keyboard player Karl Jenkins and guitarist Alan Holdsworth, are mid-'70s jazz-rock at its finest. More organic-sounding than its contemporaries the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the band swings from the Zen-like pastoral feel of the title track and the exploratory "Penny Hitch" to the incendiary rock attack of "Hazard Profile (Part One)," while "Land of the Bag Snake" features Holdsworth soloing as if his life depended on it.

A pioneering British psychedelic group in the late 1960s, Soft Machine eventually developed a unique, forward-thinking brand of jazz-rock tinged with progressive/experimental touches. As the leading light of the "Canterbury scene" (a loosely knit collection of like-minded Canterbury, Kent, England-based bands which also included Caravan and Gong), the combo came to define the jazz-rock genre and was hugely influential to the burgeoning jazz fusion and experimental rock scenes. Soft Machine is also notable as a springboard for the successful later careers of several of its members, including Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Allen Holdsworth, Andy Summers. Originally based around surreal, heady, rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic deconstructions of conventional pop song structures, Soft Machine's music eventually morphed into a much looser, more improvisational style that found favor with fans of American acts such as Weather Report and Return to Forever. After the departure of prime mover Wyatt, Soft Machine continued on in various incarnations for several decades, but to much less acclaim.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25