A portion of psychedelic. Machine - Machine (1970)

Greetings to all admirers forgotten music of the 20th century.

At this time, I propose to recall the delightful Dutch team called Machine, which played in the style of psychedelic rock.

Group was created in Rotterdam in the late 60s after vocalist Iwan "Spooky" Groeneveld left the pop duo Spooky & Sue and joined to Swinging Soul Machine team. As you might guess from the title - guys played soul and funk music. Among the member were: bassist Jan Warbie, chief writer keyboardist Paul Vink, guitarist Mac Sell, drummer Jan de Bliek and a whole crowd of different brass.

With Spooky, team has a smash hit. But after release of the album “Through the eye”, in 1969, band’s voice decides to return to a duet with Sue. But guys did not lose their head and found him a worthy replacement in the face of John Caljouw from Dragonfly, soon replacing, or rather, reducing the name to a concise Machine.

Band started the recording of first album with new vocalist with members: bass player Jan Warbie, drummer Jan Bliek, guitarist Mac Sell, keyboard player Paul Vink, saxophonists Willem Warbie and Maarten Bekkers.

Recorded in 1970, the studio work “Machine” was the first and, unfortunately, the only one in group’s discography.

Music on the album is seriously different from what guys did before. Quite an interesting album with dominant guitars, Hammond organ and an abundance of wind instruments (trumpet, saxophones, flute, clarinet).

Separately, I would like to mention the album cover, which was performed by Polydor staff artist Richard Henning. One can only assume that the popularity film "Planet of the Apes" franchise has gained cult status throughout the world.

The release of the album coincided with the release of its second part, called “Beneath The Planet Of The Apes”, which was released on May 24, 1970. Henning was inspired by this picture that he decided to put a monkey image on the cover in profile. But these are only assumptions and, perhaps, there is no connection in these two things.

Unfortunately, band did not continue, and it soon ceased to exist, giving only one studio album. But this work is incredibly interesting. There is quite a serious progressive blues rock with psychedelic elements. Pay attention to this release and you will not remain indifferent.