Soft Machine Legacy’s blend of sounds often defies categorization. It’s jazzy, it’s space and it’s very cool. Parts are more freeform and at times they wander towards seemingly random elements. It can be dissonant, but it can also be very melodic. Whatever you call this mix of textures, though, this is quite an entertaining set of instrumental music that should have something for most listeners.

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The horns really drive the opening section here. As it works through a couple changes those horns are out front. It works to some mellower, slower melodic music from there. Later it shifts to some spacey music as they continue. Eventually it rises back up and when it does it gets pretty freeform and chaotic. At times it’s also rather noisy. The earlier, triumphant, horn based jam returns to end the piece.

Echoey space music opens this. It doesn’t really go far from this starting point, but it’s also relatively short.

A killer old school jazz groove opens this one and carries it forward. Then a little after the one minute mark a soloing guitar heralds a more rock oriented fusion jam. Beyond that there is some great horn soloing, too. This just oozes cool as it moves languidly forward. Guitar and horn are trading riffs as the song fades out to end.

This is a short percussion solo.

As this opens the rhythm section lays down a great slow groove while awesome atmospheric space jazz dances overhead.  I’m reminded just a tiny bit of John Coltrane on this for some reason. Still, it’s more of a proggy space music in a lot of ways. Perhaps Traffic is also a valid comparison. The cut continues evolving a slow, melodic way. It’s quite pretty and intriguing.

Weighing in at less than a minute and a half in length, drums start this. Then the melody comes in with an almost Egyptian feel to it.

Frantic drumming opens this cut, a shorter one. Then saxophone screams and wails over the top of that chaos. It carries on like that throughout and seems to let out straight into the next number.

A cool crunch guitar section opens this. It’s punctuated by a horn heavy jam. That alternating concept serves as the structure as this works forward. Around the two minute mark it drops to just the rhythm section. It feels like the bass might take over for a time, but instead the guitar rises up and the jam starts to resemble King Crimson meets some guitar god. The jam gets pretty intense and then other instruments join and take a turn at driving the solos. This is one of the most effective pieces here and everyone gets a chance to shine.

Jazz, space rock and world music seem to merge as this starts and builds. Noisy echoey freeform jamming takes it. It’s definitely more space music oriented, but the horn playing keeps the jazz in place. It turns towards Hawkwind music for a time. Then it powers up into a harder rocking jam. Yet, the saxophone keeps jamming across the top.

Space music and jazz merge on this mellow tune. It’s slow moving and echoey. It’s also relatively short and pretty.