NUCLEUS — Direct Hits (review)

NUCLEUS — Direct Hits album cover Boxset / Compilation · 1976 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
snobb
Nucleus is mostly known as a source for musicians who eventually joined Soft Machine and the band never was as popular as the leading Canterbury scene bands of the early 70s. On the other hand, they are possibly one of best known British non-Canterbury jazz rock bands from that time.

'Direct Hits' is the band's only compilation of hits till now. Ian Carr is the founder of the band. Besides him, Nucleus survived many line-up changes, so the list of artists who collaborated on this release is really impressive. First of all, (besides Carr himself) such known names are Alan Holdsworth, Roy Babbington and Karl Jenkins (all of whom were part of the Soft Machine team at different times and are strongly responsible for Soft Machine's switch from an improvisation based psychedelic jazz-rock band to a straight-ahead fusion collective). The music on this compilation illustrates quite well the early period in Nucleus' activity (as with any compilation though, a lot of important compositions are left off).

The best way to imagine what Nucleus' music is like is to just imagine an even more straight-forward fusion than on the Softs' 'Bundles', energetic and melodic, but without any memorable compositions. The tempos tend to vary from medium to fast and the ensemble playing is based around Ian Carr's trumpet. This music does not have traces of the depth or complexity of Soft Machine's "Third", but concentrates more on easy accessible moments.

This is music for fans of Karl Jenkins' Soft Machine (in many cases his work in Soft Machine is even better).

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