Soft Machine's revolving door of personnel changes continued with 1974's Seven, the last Softs album with a numbered title and also the last released by Columbia.
Bassist Hugh Hopper was gone, replaced by Roy Babbington, a guest musician on 1971's Fourth who had played bass with Nucleus.
Two other Nucleus alumni, keyboardist/reedman Karl Jenkins and drummer John Marshall, were on board as well, and since keyboardist/composer Mike Ratledge was now the band's only founding member (actually, Hopper wasn't an original member either, having replaced Kevin Ayers for Volume Two), the group's links to its early years seemed increasingly tenuous -- and would become more so.
Yet when Jenkins had joined the group prior to Six, following the departure of saxophonist Elton Dean, he seemed to bring an intuitive grasp of how Soft Machine could continue moving forward in the band's jazz-rock years while retaining touchstones to the past.
A less assertive saxophonist than Dean, Jenkins played multiple reeds but didn't really match Dean as an improviser; his main contributions in the future would be as keyboardist and composer in the ever-evolving Soft Machine style of jazz-rock.
And on Seven, he penned seven of the album's 12 tracks, beginning to assume the band leadership role that Ratledge -- who composed four tracks -- shied away from.
With Jenkins edging closer to the band's creative center, the Softs forged ahead with their riff- and ostinato-based music, keyboard and reed melodies intersecting at unexpected angles with streamlined yet often odd-metered bass and drums, all flowing forward with muted, spacy sonorities and sometimes hypnotic repetition (and, of course, bridges or codas of echoing keyboard loops).
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nettle BedKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 04:50 | 11 MB | 0 MB |
| 2 | Carol AnnKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 03:45 | 8 MB | 0 MB |
| 3 | Day's EyeMike Ratledge | Soft Machine | Play | 05:02 | 11 MB | 0 MB |
| 4 | Bone FireMike Ratledge | Soft Machine | Play | 00:35 | 1 MB | 0 MB |
| 5 | TarabosMike Ratledge | Soft Machine | Play | 04:27 | 10 MB | 0 MB |
| 6 | D.I.S.Jack Marshall | Soft Machine | Play | 03:03 | 7 MB | 0 MB |
| 7 | SnodlandKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 01:51 | 4 MB | 0 MB |
| 8 | Penny HitchKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 06:38 | 15 MB | 0 MB |
| 9 | BlockKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 04:18 | 9 MB | 0 MB |
| 10 | Down the RoadKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 05:44 | 13 MB | 0 MB |
| 11 | The German LessonMike Ratledge | Soft Machine | Play | 01:51 | 4 MB | 0 MB |
| 12 | The French LessonKarl Jenkins | Soft Machine | Play | 01:02 | 2 MB | 0 MB |
| 43 mins | 98 MB | |||||
| 0 mins | 0 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roy Babbington | Bass, Bass (Acoustic), Group Member, Guitar (Bass) |
| 2 | Tim Fulford Brown | Photography |
| 3 | Paschal Byrne | Remastering |
| 4 | Alison Calvert | Project Coordinator |
| 5 | Simon Cantwell | Artwork |
| 6 | Mike Heanly | Road Crew |
| 7 | Karl Jenkins | Composer, Group Member, Keyboards, Oboe, Piano (Electric), Recorder, Sax (Baritone), Sax (Soprano), Saxophone |
| 8 | Jack Marshall | Composer |
| 9 | John Marshall | Drums, Group Member, Percussion |
| 10 | Gary Martin | Engineer |
| 11 | Chris Michie | Tape Operator |
| 12 | Sean Murphy | Engineer, Executive Producer |
| 13 | Barry Plummer | Photography |
| 14 | Mark Powell | Liner Notes, Tape Research |
| 15 | Mike Ratledge | Composer, Group Member, Keyboards, Organ, Piano (Electric), Synthesizer |
| 16 | Phil Smee | Package Design |
| 17 | Soft Machine | Primary Artist, Producer |
| 18 | Charlie Stanford | Project Coordinator |
| 19 | Gerald "Soul G" Stevens | Road Crew |
| 20 | Roslav Szaybo | Art Direction, Design |
| 21 | Steve Taylor | Tape Operator |
| 22 | Steve "Steev" Taylor | Tape Operator |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |