The band were formed in 1966 by Mike Ratledge, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen and Larry Nowlin.

Soft Machine were central in the Canterbury scene; they became one of the first British psychedelic acts, and later moved into progressive and jazz rock.

[2] Soft Machine's lineup has undergone many changes, and has included Andy Summers, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean,[3] John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, Roy Babbington and Allan Holdsworth.

As of 2025[update], the current line-up consists of John Etheridge, Theo Travis, Fred Thelonious Baker and Asaf Sirkis.

[18] Ayers himself departed amicably after the final tour date at the Hollywood Bowl in September, and Soft Machine disbanded.

[19] In December 1968, to fulfil contractual obligations, Wyatt and Ratledge re-formed The Soft Machine with their former road manager Hugh Hopper replacing Ayers on bass.

In May 1969, The Soft Machine played as the uncredited backing band on two tracks of The Madcap Laughs, the debut solo album of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett.

Around this time, the band recorded the soundtrack for a multimedia show called Spaced, which ran in London for five days in mid 1969.

In October 1969, following Brian Hopper's departure, The Soft Machine expanded to a septet; Wyatt, Ratledge and Hugh Hopper added a four-piece horn section composed of the saxophonists Elton Dean and Lyn Dobson, cornet player Mark Charig and trombonist Nick Evans.

From Fourth onwards, the band became completely instrumental on record, and then on stage following Wyatt's departure soon after the album's release.

Later that year, Dean left the band[3] and was replaced by Karl Jenkins, who also played keyboards in addition to saxophone.

Other members of Soft Machine during the late 1970s were the saxophonist Ray Warleigh, the violinist Ric Sanders, and the bassists Percy Jones of Brand X and Steve Cook.

In 1978, Soft Machine gave only one live performance, which was at the Sound & Musik Festival in Dortmund, West Germany, on 8 December, with a line-up of Marshall, Jenkins, Cook and Holdsworth.

Soft Machine also briefly reformed for a series of concerts at London's Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in mid 1984[nb 1] that featured John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, Ray Warleigh, John Etheridge, bassist Paul Carmichael and pianist Dave MacRae.

[24] During a Japanese Soft Works tour in August 2003, Elton Dean on saxophone and Hugh Hopper on bass formed the band Soft Mountain along with Japanese musicians Hoppy Kamiyama on keyboards, whom Hopper had met two years earlier, and Yoshida Tatsuya from the band Ruins on drums.

[27] Looking for a break from relatively fixed set lists and song forms, Hugh Hopper had contacted Kamiyama with the idea of using a studio for one day to see what might happen.

In 2007, a year after Elton Dean died aged 60, Soft Mountain released the eponymous album they had recorded on 10 August 2003 in Tokyo, Japan.

[30] After Elton Dean died in February 2006, the band continued with the British saxophonist and flautist Theo Travis, formerly of Gong and The Tangent.

[41] In September and October 2015, it was announced Soft Machine Legacy, which was composed of drummer John Marshall, guitarist John Etheridge, bassist Roy Babbington, and sax, flute and keyboard player Theo Travis, would be performing under the name Soft Machine in late 2015 and early 2016: they would perform two shows in the Netherlands and Belgium in early December 2015,[42][nb 2] and seven UK shows in March and April 2016.

[44] The former Soft Machine member Allan Holdsworth, aged 70, died from heart failure on 15 April 2017 at his home in Vista, California.

It was recorded live on 1 February 2019 at The Baked Potato, Los Angeles, and was initially only available as a twelve-track limited-edition double vinyl LP of 200 copies but it has since been released on Compact Disc (CD).

[54] In June 2023, Soft Machine released the new studio album Other Doors, which was recorded with John Marshall before he retired from music.

[56][57] They embarked on a seven-date UK tour beginning on 3 February 2023 at the New Cross Inn in London and ending on 26 May 2023 at City Varieties in Leeds.