The Soft Machine - Fourth CD (album) cover   The Soft Machine
Canterbury Scene  3.45 | 214 ratings  From Progarchives.com, the
ultimate progressive rock music website  Special Collaborator
Post Rock Team 3 stars This was the first 100% instrumental Soft
Machine album and the last to feature Robert Wyatt. Saxophonist
Elton Dean is a full member now and he has a big influence on
the band's sound. Wyatt left because he didn't like the non-
vocal, more jazz-inclined direction the group was heading into.
He formed his own group named after the French term for Soft
Machine: 'machine molle'(Matching Mole). Here they take the jazz
element of the previous two albums and put more emphasis on it,
while mostly ignoring their psych-rock past. This is basically a
fusion album with no real 'Canterbury' sound involved. Some
guest musicians appear, including wind players whom some might
be familiar with from some Crimson and Caravan albums; and
bassist Roy Babbington who plays acoustic double bass here while
Hugh Hopper play