MoonJune 2003 / 2025
Abracadabra
Finest proponents of English fusion reclaim their creative success and return to form in a fiercely mysterious manner.
As undefined as it may seem with constant changes of SOFT MACHINE’s personnel, this ensemble’s always had a strong sonic identity, and nothing speaks of it more eloquently than “Abracadabra” by SOFT WORKS, the same group in all except the name – but that would soon be restored, too. Bringing back four former band members, who’d never before performed together as a single collective, the veterans’ first album in two decades found then tap into the familiar Canterbury template with mature ferociousness and attention to details which come with age. When there’s nothing left to prove, and to lose, and important things boil down to telepathy between fellow musicians and the instrumentalists’ ability to complement each other’s ideas, miracles can happen.
These eight pieces are the best example of magical imagery Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Marshall and Allan Holdsworth used to conjure for around two years, and even took on the road, as the fresh “Has Riff” and the classic “Facelift” – preserved for posterity in Tokyo and added as bonuses to the record’s remastered reissue – suggest, yet what the quartet cut in the studio stitched their past to the future quite astoundingly. Almost just as loose as the combo’s Japanese improvs, epics like opener “Seven Formerly” – that floats into focus on the waves of Dean’s glimmering synthesizers and shimmering saxes and slowly fills the entire space, once Hopper’s fluid bass rumble and Marshall’s scattered groove underpin its streamlined elegy, which Holdsworth’s six string elevate to the stratosphere – feel nothing short of hypnotic, albeit deeply sentimental, especially after the beats pick up steam. And though the initially abstract and then tightly coiled “First Trane” and the bouncy “Willie’s Knee” – that is driven by guitar and Fender Rhodes – present an overtly jazzy front, with brass at the fore, they have a merry edge the album’s unhurriedly, and unpredictably, unfolding title track and the magnificently soaring “Elsewhere” trade for blindingly polished fusion.
There’s a tinge of baroque solemnity about the meandering “K Licks” and a torch warmth about the smooth “Baker’s Treat” which envelope the listener in intricate interplay, whereas “Madame Vintage” distills it to separate strands to expose this machine’s inner works. Not that any secrets of the group’s mechanics got revealed as a result, but the numbers the “Abracadabra” album is made of remain a testament to the talents of the four artists who are sadly no longer with us.
*****
