"Huffin" is an instrumental song written by Karl Jenkins and performed by Soft Machine.
Rowan Ayers was the father of Kevin Ayers, a founder member of Soft Machine and a very keen Merlin Rocket sailor in the 1960s.
Enigma machine | Rage Against the Machine | Automated teller machine | Victor Talking Machine Company | Soft Machine | Soft Cell | The Time Machine | Soft Skull Press | Linotype machine | Vickers machine gun | soft drink | DeLorean time machine | Sprite (soft drink) | Darne machine gun | Rube Goldberg machine | MG 17 machine gun | The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company | soft rock | Soft drink | Machine Head (band) | Machine Head | KPV heavy machine gun | Hudson Soft | slot machine | machine | ShKAS machine gun | PK machine gun | machine pistol | Love Removal Machine | Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine |
The track "Memories", basically a Robert Wyatt performance, was initially recorded in 1967 by Soft Machine (with Daevid Allen on guitar) and later also covered by Material on their 1982 album One Down with a lead vocal by Whitney Houston.
The label’s founder is Mark Powell, who has been a freelance music consultant for major labels such as Universal, Sony and EMI since 2000, working with artists including Soft Machine, Caravan, Camel, Man and Hawkwind, as well as producing label retrospectives covering Deram, Decca, Vertigo, Harvest and United Artists.
Guests on the album include drummer Pete Cater, guitarist John Etheridge (formerly of Soft Machine), arranger and trombonist Mike Gibbs (who has worked with Jan Akkerman, Peter Gabriel, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Jaco Pastorius), saxophonist John Helliwell (Supertramp), cellist Hugh McDowell (formerly of Electric Light Orchestra), and flautist Rowland Sutherland.
Talk Talk, Soft Machine, John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Aphex Twin, Stereolab, Squarepusher and Tortoise are frequently mentioned as sources of inspiration.
Beside Sylvian, "Fourth World" trumpeter Jon Hassell, Sylvians' brother and formally Japan's drummer Steve Jansen, German Ex-Can-member Holger Czukay tuning the radio, and Brand X-, respectively Soft Machine-bassist Percy Jones took part in the recordings, which were engineered by Nigel Walker, who also co-produced the album.
The lyric about "the man who works the soft machine" may be a reference to the William S. Burroughs novel The Soft Machine.