Soft Machine

Robert Wyatt's light touch imbues these pleasant experiments with their own unique pulse, but only because the music is labeled rock is it hailed as a breakthrough. It does qualify as a change of pace--on the group's last album three musicians put seventeen titles on two sides, while on this one eight musicians put four on four. But though Mike Ratledge's "Out-Bloody-Rageous," to choose the most interesting example, brings together convincing approximations of Terry Riley-style modular pianistics and John Coltrane-style modal sax (Hugh Hopper has Jimmy Garrison's bass down perfect), Riley and Coltrane do it better. Only Wyatt's "Moon in June" is eccentric by the standards of its influences--which must be why it's hard to name them all. (Grade: B)