Canterbury mainstays Soft Machine are back! As the group herald a new era without their longtime drummer John Marshall and bassist Roy Babbington, the current line-up tell Prog all about their latest studio album, Other Doors, and we find out more about their new drummer, Asaf Sirkis.

Words: Sid Smith

It’s been five years since Soft Machine released their last studio album, Hidden Details. That’s a rather leisurely pace compared to back in the 70s, when bands signed to major record labels found themselves under a contractual obligation to put out at least one, sometimes two records a year. These days, operating in the independent sector, those kinds of external demands have all but disappeared. Nevertheless there are other pressures and considerations to take into account, according to John Etheridge, Soft Machine guitarist and de facto leader of the group.

“I was personally very keen to get this album done because I really felt it was our last chance to have John Marshall in the studio,” he says, speaking about the drummer he first worked with in Soft Machine after replacing Allan Holdsworth in 1975.

“We’ve worked through the years together intermittently ever since. His drumming always meant a lot to me.” Something of a legend among industry circles and very much regarded as the drummer’s drummer, Marshall enjoyed a long professional career that began in the early 1960s and would go on to encompass pop, blues, rock and jazz. His incisive work with Graham Collier, Nucleus, the Jack Bruce band and Eberhard Weber’s Colours all form a remarkable CV but it’s his association with Soft Machine for which he remains best known. When he joined in January 1972, he walked into a band in crisis following the sacking of Phil Howard in the middle of recording Fifth.