Autumn is pressing in on us. The bright, lively greens of the summer leaves are rapidly turning to their beautiful autumnal colours. The air has that cool crispness that you can feel on your cheeks even when standing in the warming sun. The days are a little shorter and the nights a little longer. *sigh* Summer is gone for another year but that doesn't mean you can't be reminded of those fun summer pool parties and BBQs with friends. Soft Machine is one way you can do that.

Teddybears — formerly grindcore-punk group Skull out of Sweden — are about to release their new album — their debut in the U.S. market — Soft Machine. With its diverse mixed and matched genres ranging from punk to reggae, all enhanced with electro-pop dance beats. It has an interesting array of featured vocalists — including Neneh Cherry (elder sister of Eagle Eye), Mad Cobra and Iggy Pop (his best work in years).

Soft Machine is clean dance-y beats, fun pop hooks, bouncy, poppy rhythms, high energy lyrics and tons of synth. Soft Machine harkens back to all those pool parties and BBQs and will bring summer back to you and all it's energetic, lively heights. It is a fantastic dance/pop party album.

"Cobrastyle" — the song from that fun, funky strange-dancing Heiniken commercial — is an upbeat, playful dancehall track featuring Mad Cobra. This track is an accessible, danceable reggae-pop concoction that is utterly captivating due in no small part to that horridly addictive, debomb-didibomd-dedang-dedang-diggy-diggy chorus.

"Yours To Keep" featuring Neneh Cherry is pure pop-dance. It's summer bottled! And you can't shake the feeling you should be listening to it in a convertible with the top down, wind blowing your hair back and, as the lyrics say, "stereo turned up loud with a fat sound". This is a catchy, effervescent, soon-to-be-classic summer pop anthem to rival ALL others.

Fresh, funky with just a touch of punk and Iggy Pop singing "Cause I'm a punkrocker yes I am!" over addictive synth hooks. "Punkrocker" is the best thing Iggy has done in years. Teddybears have created Iggy's next big hit using his iconic, punk-god status to its full as his deep, earthy voice belts out the completely appropriate lyrics "I listen to the music with no fear. You can hear it too if you're sincere. Cause I'm a punkrocker yes I am."

Soft Machine is everything that pop music should be funky, fresh, frolicsome, danceable and intelligent. It's pop like only former punkrockers could make it.
It's due out in early October and I highly recommend Soft Machine to everyone. If you would like to listen to the tracks I have mentioned you can visit the Teddybears MySpace space.