Land of Cockayne (album)

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Land of Cockayne
LandCockayne.jpg
Studio album by
Released1981
RecordedJune & July 1980
StudioPye Studios & Riverside Studios in London
GenreJazz rock
Length43:51
LabelEMI EMC 3348
ProducerMike Thorne
Soft Machine chronology
Alive & Well: Recorded in Paris
(1978)
Land of Cockayne
(1981)
Hidden Details
(2018)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic [1]

Land of Cockayne is the tenth studio album by the jazz rock band Soft Machine, released in 1981. By this point, the band had lost all of its original members. The title refers to the medieval land of plenty. It would be the last album released under the Soft Machine name until Hidden Details in 2018.

Overview[edit]

The album came about as the result of a project in which Karl Jenkins and John Marshall had been involved featuring top session musicians. The ad hoc band, Rollercoaster, had recently recorded the Stevie Wonder tribute album Wonderin' (1980) and decided to record another album together.[2] Many of the musicians included on the Cockayne album would make up Soft Machine's final live line-up which played a six-night residency at Ronnie Scott's in 1984. This is the only Soft Machine album to feature a string section.[citation needed]

Track listing[edit]

All compositions by Karl Jenkins.

Side one[edit]

  1. "Over 'n' Above" – 7:24
  2. "Lotus Groves" – 4:57
  3. "Isle of the Blessed" – 1:56
  4. "Panoramania" – 7:07
  5. "Behind the Crystal Curtain" – 0:53

Side two[edit]

  1. "Palace of Glass" – 3:22
  2. "Hot-Biscuit Slim" – 7:27
  3. "(Black) Velvet Mountain" – 5:10
  4. "Sly Monkey" – 5:00
  5. "A Lot of What You Fancy..." – 0:35

Personnel[edit]

Soft Machine[3]

Additional musicians

Production

  • Mike Thorne – production
  • Roy Ellsworth – artwork
  • Bill Harman – orchestra leader

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Soft Machine - Land of Cockayne (1981) album rating, user reviews, credits & releases | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
  2. ^ Bennett, Graham Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous SAF Publishing Ltd, 2005 ISBN 0-946719-84-5 ISBN 978-0-946719-84-6 at Google Books
  3. ^ Land of Cockayne (liner notes). Soft Machine. EMI Records. 1981. 1A 062-07439.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)

External links[edit]