Living On The Edge

Luke Machin is one of modern prog’s brightest sparks, but with his solo debut as Soulshine he wanted to do something completely different. The soul-heavy, genre-twisting album features a healthy number of guest spots from prog luminaries as it teeters off the edge of the genre's borders. That, says the guitarist, was intended and Prog catches up with him to find out more.

- Phil Weller

David Gilmour recently said that he never labelled Pink Floyd as a progressive band; it was just the music they were writing," says Luke Machin. "And that's how I see Soulshine; it's just good music. I didn't want to set limitations or boundaries; it just escaped from me like everything does when I'm writing."

The guitarist, who has been an ever-present talent in the progressive rock world over the last 15 years, isn't beating around the bush when he says his debut solo album is a departure from his usual shtick. Compared to his work in Maschine, Cyan, Karnataka, The Tangent and Francis Dunnery's iteration of It Bites, Soulshine is something of a palate cleanser.

“It’s definitely different,” he says. “There’s a lot of soul music in there, but it’s just as technical as what I’ve been doing in the prog world.”

That technicality is partly a result of the fact that, even when trying to stretch out into other musical realms, the spirit of prog runs deep within him.

“Originally, I wanted to write a neo-soul album, but it started to branch out in ways I didn’t foresee,” he says. “That’s testament to losing yourself in music, and not having constraints.”

The record is a story of two halves. Side A leans heavily into R&B and soul styles, with side B metamorphosed by his trademark trickiness.

“I moved to Brighton to study at BIMM [British and Irish Modern Music Institute] and be in a prog band,” he says of his career’s beginnings. “I wanted to do 20-minute guitar solos and I’ve been doing that for a long time. I still listen to progressive music, but there's a whole other world out there and I had a lot of ideas that didn't fit into any of the prog bands I'm in."

The album's genesis can be traced back eight years and it sees him playing homage to a different cast of artists.