I heard somewhere that putting on the Soft Machine will kill any party... Although I've never witnessed it myself, that may be a fair assumption having heard their first couple albums. A little bit disappointed considering they were pretty central in the Canterbury music scene through the 60's and 70's along with Wilde Flowers, Caravan, Camel, and Pink Floyd(60's), even performing briefly on Syd Barret's The Madcap Laughs as his backup band. And of course they were member swapping everyone from Andy Sommers(the Police) to Richard Sinclair and cousin Dave Sinclair who both appeared later in Camel. But something later in their career really clicked which I found to be quite cool.
Somewhere around '73-'74 during one of their mass member swaps they ended up with this super badass lineup that included an additional keys/oboe/sax player and this fusion guitarist named Allan Holdsworth. They adopted much of that fusion sound, only unlike the American Jazz Fusion happening simultaneously, the Soft Machine as well as many bands the other side of the Atlantic, seemed to draw more influence from the classical music that was more traditional to the area. The result is some kind of fusion/prog hybrid and they definitely nailed it on Bundles.
Check out this performance from the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival.
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