Soft Machine Legacy: Theo Travis (tenor and sopranos saxes, flute), John Etheridge (electric guitar), Hugh Hopper (electric bass) and John Marshall (drums, percussion). From the album Steam (2007).
In 1999, Travis joined guitarist David Allen’s jazz, progressive rock and space rock group Gong, touring with it the United States, Great Britain, Europe and Japan, and playing an important role in Zero to Infinity (2000). Space rock is a style of rock that originated in the late 1960s with psychedelic and progressive rock bands like Hawkwind and Pink Floyd. It’s characterized by long themes with cosmic and hypnotic sounds, and usually contains languid voices, science fiction lyrics, guitars with distortion and reverberation, synthesizers and little battery intervention. Other projects with 33 Jazz Records include Heart of the Sun (2001), Earth to Ether (2004) and Double Talk (2007). Travis usually tours with his band, the Theo Travis Quartet, appearing at many festivals and jazz clubs in his country, such as London’s Ronnie Scott’s, as well as on the radio.
Theo Travis
In 2003 he recorded alone the ambient music album Slow Life using tape loops. Ambient music is a musical genre that puts sound and atmosphere above traditional melody, harmonic structure or rhythm. To do this, repetitive but soft and relaxing sound patterns are used, usually with synthesizers, producing a feeling of tranquility. In 2006 Travis joined Soft Machine Legacy to replace Elton Dean, who died earlier that year, and the band launched Steam (2007), Live Adventures (2010) and Burden of Proof (2013). In 2015 it recovered its original name Soft Machine and released Hidden Details (2018). In 2008 Travis started to work in duet with renowned guitarist Robert Fripp of the progressive rock group King Crimson, and they recorded Thread (2008), in which Travis plays soprano saxophone and flute, and Fripp guitar and synthesizers. In Live at Coventry Cathedral (2010), Fripp only plays guitar.
Robert Fripp
In Follow (2012), Fripp uses his Frippertronics, a tape loops technique developed by himself and previously experimented on several albums by musician and record producer Brian Eno; and soundscapes, a kind of music he also created, in which he modifies tape loops with synthesizers and digital audio processing devices. And finally they published Discretion (2014) and Between the Silence (2018). Travis has also collaborated with the singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and record producer Steve Wilson in his albums Insurgentes (2008), Grace for Drowning (2011), Get All You Deserve (2012) and The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories (2013), and has toured with him the United States, South America and Europe. His book Twice Around The World: Steven Wilson Tour Blogs 2012-2013 went on sale in 2014. He is currently performing with his bluesy progresive jazz group Double Talk made up by himself on tenor sax and flute, Mike Outram on guitar, Pete Whittaker on organ Hammon, and Nic France on drums presenting his latest album Transgression from 2015.
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