8. Soft MachineThe Soft Machine
I would have been about 12 when I encountered this for the first time. I came across it at a friend’s house and was immediately transfixed. You’ve got this incredible journeying quality that is very experimental. It goes everywhere, embraces jazz languages, electronic music, psychedelic rock, soul – it is very cut-up and collage-y. You can feel it jumping around in front of your eyes.
It also has something of that English pastoralism – what you get with early Pink Floyd or Nick Drake. There’s that Wind In The Willows-on-acid aspect. Robert Wyatt’s amazing drumming holds it together in a way – it’s a bit like Can and Jaki Liebezeit in that it’s all about the percussion driving this thing along. Robert is a great songwriter in his own right and I was lucky enough to kidnap him for one of my records. He’s a joy: a lovely, interesting, funny, thoughtful guy. The first Soft Machine LP is very much of its time – but has things to say to us now.
