Featuring members of Soft Machine, Gilgamesh and National Health, Soft Heap was an adventurous band that had honed themselves for live work, with this eponymous album marking their only studio release. Recorded in 1978, Soft Heap reflects the prominence of Elton Dean’s saxophone and Alan Gowen’s keyboard. As they both vie and intertwine, the rhythm team of Hugh Hopper on bass and Pip Pyle on drums centre the pieces, with the former also providing a tugging, underlying melodic counterpoint. Together the quartet creates avant-garde, occasionally electronic, Canterbury jazz-prog, at its most sophisticated, intriguing, and inspiring, cultivating the group’s unique identity.
Track List LP SIDE A 1. Circle Line 2. A.W.O.L. 3. Petit 3’S SIDE B 4. Terra Nova 5. Fara 6. Short Hand