Consumer Guide Album

Soft Machine: Six [Columbia, 1973]
Karl Jenkins, whose horns and keyboards replace Elton Dean's alto, provides the band's best track since "Moon in June": "The Soft Weed Factor," in which a tiny piano riff builds through dozens (hundreds?) of repetitions into a rocking and roiling modular extravaganza. But with Robert Wyatt gone for two albums now, most of the rest is jazz or no discernible inspiration. Mike Ratledge sounds thinner every time out--I kept wondering if I'd blown a channel. Maybe he's taking a cue from Jenkins, who makes Dean sound like Gato Barbieri when he picks up his soprano. B−