"It's definitely different. There's a lot of soul music in there." The story of Luke Machin's debut solo album, 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 when Prog caught up with him.

Intro

“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.

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.

“I saw Jacob Collier and Snarky Puppy live and they melted my face, it was a whole other approach to musicality,” he says. “But there’s also a big influence from bands my dad showed me when I was growing up: Earth, Wind & Fire, Teddy Pendergrass and George Duke. Wild Roses is an homage to Chick Corea. Not to blow my own trumpet but it’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever written. It drove me insane. It took me two months to write the last minute of the song and it was played on a £5 guitar that I bought from a bloke down the road in lockdown [laughs].

“I wanted to do something different with this album. But I still feel it is progressive, even if it’s surprised a lot of people I’ve shown it to.”

Soulshine walks the tightrope between prog and neo-soul but the record’s lengthy list of guest stars – including Francis Dunnery, Guthrie Govan, Marco Minnemann and Tiger Moth Tales’ Peter Jones – gives it plenty of progressive kudos. He made full use of his little black book of contacts. So, did he write with those musicians in mind?

“A few of them, yes. But in the case of Final Boss, that was a really adventurous track. I threw the kitchen sink at in terms of technical ability, and it came back nearly 10-minutes long. When I was programming the drums I was thinking, ‘Who the hell is going to play this?’ and Marco was the only drummer I could think of. He’s a monster.”

By 2020, Machin was ready to reach out to his wishlist of guests, and lockdown restrictions suddenly meant Minnemann, the first person he approached, was available.

“It was this silver lining to a very dark cloud,” says Machin. “I can’t remember where I got his email from, but he agreed to do it and sent me a recording back in about two hours. How the hell do you do that? I’d put everything that I know into the song just for him to send it back like it was nothing.

“I’d asked him to record a video of him playing it, too, and when I watched the footage back, he was sight reading as he was playing. It was mental to watch. After that, I was totally fuelled to get the other guests on.”

Some guests were easier to coax into the project than others, with Dunnery among them.

“When we were on tour, he kept singing a melody from the end of [Maschine song] Cubixstro and because I was influenced by a ton of prog at that time, that song came out very progressive. But that melody got lost in the song. He’d been saying that I had to reuse it, and that’s what I did with Turn Around. It made sense he sang on it.

“When he did his slide guitar and vocal solo on Parisian Rooftops, the last note harmonises with Daniel’s [Gildenlöw, Pain Of Salvation] first vocal that comes after. It was a real ‘Oh my God’ moment hearing two of my heroes come together like that.”

Guthrie Govan (the Aristocrats, Steven Wilson) was another easy steal. Machin studied under him for two years at BIMM and he’d been a key motivator behind his move to the south coast.

“Parisian Rooftops has an R&B feel in 9/8 and he came back with an absolute monster solo. Everything that I listen to Guthrie for has been distilled into that 90-second solo.

“I think it’s a theme of the album that the different style is getting a bit more out of everyone. I think it forced them to deliver things in a different way. If it could snapshot the best of Guthrie or Francis, this album has it.”

He had to search further afield for other talents. Here, his intimacy with the prog scene did him no favours.

“The first vocalist I got on board was Sh’Kye who’s on Energy, Diving In and Soulshine,” he reveals. “He’s a Black soul singer from Texas I found on Fiverr [a marketplace of creative freelancers]. Being from the progressive rock world, I didn’t know anybody [outside that world]. I’d gone through about 300 people before I found him. He had the exact voice I was after, but he also had the worst recording setup, like he’d recorded through a washing machine. I ended up producing him from across the pond; it was either that or have someone who’s voice wasn’t as fitting.

“I found the female singer, Anastasia [Pshokina] on Fiverr, too. She does Rise Up, Blossom and all the backing vocals. She did an absolutely stunning job.”

Her recording setup was far better, but the world outside of her home studio was less so.

“She was actually recording that stuff during the Ukraine war,” says Machin. “There were sirens going on in her recordings. It was crazy.”

Ultimately, Soulshine is a one-off for Machin – it’s the encapsulation of an esteemed prog musician wanting to venture outside their wheelhouse, even if there are flashes of his prog proclivities throughout. Moving forwards, he tells Prog that things will be different in other ways.

“I’ve actually got the Soulshine live band already waiting in the wings,” he reveals. “There’s no way we can recreate the record live without a crazy budget, so it’ll be stripped back and each instrument will take on a lot more roles, so I’m excited to see how that comes out.

“Whatever I do for my next album will be completely different again. This album is so polished and finely tuned; it’ll probably be something a lot rawer. It’s been a complete learning curve, especially producing it myself, and I’ve loved making it. I wanted to make an album that I really enjoy listening to, and that is very much the case.”