Pitchfork

It might be too much to expect a new LP from Soft Machine co-founder Kevin Ayers so soon after The Unfairground. After all, some 15 years elapsed between that one and its predecessor, and one assumes gathering a group of guests such as the one on Unfairground takes more than a few months' time.

Lucky for us, Ayers has amassed quite an archive in the years he's spent not releasing a heck of a lot of music, and he's raided the boxes of reel-to-reel tapes for What More Can I Say...

The disc compiles a number of previously unreleased demos and studio outtakes set to tape in the early 1970s. What More not only features Kevin at his most intimate, but also includes guest performances from Ayers' Soft Machine bandmate Robert Wyatt, Tubular Bells dude Mike Oldfield, the late bassist Archie Legget, and organist David Bedford. The set is due September 1 in the UK from LO-MAX and November 4 in the States and Canada on Reel Recordings.

There's more Kevin coming at you soon enough, as LO-MAX will issue a limited edition 7" for Unfairground's "Baby Come Home" on September 8, backed with the album's "Walk on Water".

And last but certainly not least, there's Songs for Insane Times, a four-disc retrospective of Ayers' work from 1969-1980 due September 8 from EMI Harvest in Europe, Japan, and Hong Kong (U.S. release TBA). In addition to three discs of studio selections, Insane Times collects on its fourth disc a previously unreleased concert recording from Ayers' performance at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on May 25, 1973.

What More Can I Say...:

01 Unfinished
02 This Song Isn't Called Anything
03 Crystal Clear
04 Crying
05 Clarence in Oyster Land
06 Dreaming Doctor
07 What More Can Anyone Say...

Songs for Insane Times:

Disc 1:

01 Town Feeling
02 Song for Insane Times
03 Girl on a Swing
04 The Lady Rachel
05 Stop This Train (Again Doing It)
06 Eleanor's Cake (Which Ate Her)
07 Religious Experience (Singing a Song in the Morning) [ft. Syd Barrett]
08 Soon Soon Soon
09 Rheinhardt and Geraldine / Colores Para Delores
10 May I?
11 Clarence in Wonderland
12 The Oyster and the Flying Fish
13 Shooting at the Moon
14 Butterfly Dance
15 Gemini Child
16 Stars
17 There is Loving / Among Us / There is Loving

Disc 2:

01 Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes (first mix)
02 Song From the Bottom of a Well
03 Oh My
04 Margaret
05 Whatevershebringswesing
06 Decadence
07 Oh! Wot a Dream
08 Don't Let It Get You Down
09 Interview
10 Caribbean Moon 3:01
11 The Up Song
12 The Confessions of Doctor Dream: Irreversible Neural Damage
13 It Begins With a Blessing / Once I Awakened / But It Ends With a Curse
14 See You Later
15 Ballbearing Blues

Disc 3:

01 After the Show
02 Thank You Very Much
03 Observations
04 Toujours la Voyage
05 Diminished But Not Finished
06 Farewell Again (Another Dawn)
07 Yes I Do
08 Love's Gonna Turn You Round
09 Ballad of Mr. Snake
10 Blue
11 Ballad of a Salesman Who Sold Himself
12 A View From the Mountain
13 Beware of the Dog II
14 Hat Song
15 Money, Money, Money
16 Super Salesman
17 Where Do the Stars End?

Disc 4 - After The Show - Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall 1973:

01 Banana Introduction
02 Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes
03 Interview
04 Whatershebringswesing
05 Oh! Wot a Dream
06 Shouting in a Bucket Blues
07 Caribbean Moon
08 Don't Let It Get You Down
09 We Did It Again
10 Why Are We Sleeping?
11 After the Show