SEVEN

After the refreshment that Six brought to Soft Machine adding a groovier rhythm and approaching to the jazz rock sound that they would achieve with Bundles, Soft Machine chills out a bit. Also, Hugh Hopper is gone and Roy Babbington who had previously played some double-bass previously with Soft Machine now gets the full-job of playing some catchy bass lines.

Alike the live part of Six, Seven also presents a flawless flow meaning that from one track to the other there's a connection which makes a wonderful listening experience. Also this makes unrelated pieces (by name) be related, thus we've got two big pieces in each side: from 'Carol Ann' to 'D.I.S'. is one 17 minute piece that is mainly placid with spacey overtones, but there are some ocassional grooves and wilder keyboard and sax/oboe soloing. The other big piece is the entirety of Side 2, this "big piece" is akin to 'The Soft Weed Factor', an hypnotic long tune with repetitive notes but slowly builds up and gets better and better, simply sublime.

While Seven may be missing more upbeat and energized music, the album manages to be a great album for what it offers: mainly soft and floating keyboard-driven music with enough variety so as to not get bored.

4 stars: Seven is still worthy of the 4 stars for it being an excellent companion to Six, just like Softs is to Bundles. Highly recommended if you like spacey stuff in the likes of In a Silent Way by Miles Davis. If you're looking for either their more jazzy psych and elaborated stuff from the Wyatt-era or the more rockin' jazz stuff from Bundles, Seven won't satisfy you.

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