Soft Machine and Levin Brothers

Soft Machine is a legend and an institution of British music, a band who included Robert Wyatt, Daevid Allen, Mike Ratledge, Kevin Ayers, Andy Summers (later of The Police), Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, Roy Babbington, John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, Allan Holdsworth, John Etheridge, Percy Jones, Rick Sanders, Dave McRae and Jack Bruce among others (Jimi Hendrix briefly jammed with the band in 1968!).

Disbanded in 1978, recreated in few occasions in 1981 and 1984, the band resurfaces in 1999 under the name of Soft Ware. Much was said about this band with a very complex intriguing history of constant personal changes during the 1966-1978 period. The band resurrected in 1999 under the name of Soft Ware, then as Soft Works 2002-2004 and Soft Machine Legacy 2004-2015. In December 2015, it was confirmed that the band had dropped the “Legacy” tag from their name, as the band featured three of the group’s 1970s era members — guitarist John Etheridge, drummer John Marshall and bassist Roy Babbington (from the seminal 1976’s album Softs), in addition to flute and sax player Theo Travis — returning to the original name from 2015, and performing numerous concerts all around Europe, South America and Japan. Soft Machine made their first North American tour since 1975 (Holdsworth era) in October 2018, to be followed by the second North-American leg of the tour in January/February 2019.

The band’s brand new studio album Hidden Details was released worldwide in September 2018.