Fragments of Your Own Imagination (A Jet-Propelled Soft Machine)

Fragments of Your Own Imagination is the fourteenth studio album by the English rock band Soft Machine. The album was mixed and produced by their current producer at the time Anthony Moore and Tim Palmer. Land of Cockayne was released in 10 February 1984 by RCA Records. It is one of the two albums with the former Pink Floyd keyboardist at the time, Richard Wright, and his arrangement partner, Dave Harris.

Soft Machine started to record their fourteenth album at the Super Bear Studios. In July, with the help of Nick Mason, Soft Machine approached of Richard Wright to join the band and unite both projects.

The album has an abruptal change since the previous album with the heavy use of the Fairlight CMI and drum machines by Wright, Harris and Moore. Fragments of Your Own Imagination is predominantly dominated with the synthpop-oriented music with Art rock influences on the Robert Wyatt, Ollie Halsall and Kevin Ayers songs.

Lyrical themes of the album varies of humor, love, cheating, society and ideologies between the members. Robert Wyatt lyrics are influented by his ideologies.

Fragments of Your Own Imagination debuted in number 23 but just peaked in number 20 in Billboard 200, their worst position since Softs. In the United Kingdom, the album peaked in number 9, while in France and West Germany the album reached in number 5. The album topped in Spain.

The album is marked as the decline of Soft Machine by the critics, which is oftenly said that the album was carried by its two singles, Confusion, and Stop Playing With My Heart. It was widely criticized the good quality of some of the tracks of the album, but saying that they were just thrown there. Confusion peaked in number 4 in Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, number 8 in Cash Box, and number 5 in UK Singles Charts. Stop Playing with My Heart was a minor hit in Europe. Although the album performed badly, the tour was successful to the group.

Soft Machine

 * Kevin Ayers - bass guitar, electric guitar, lead and backing vocals [3; 8]
 * Robert Wyatt - drums, percussion, piano; lead and backing vocals [4; 6; 9]
 * Ollie Halsall - lead guitar, slide guitar; lead and backing vocals [2; 7]
 * Richard Wright - keyboards, drum machine, Fairlight CMI, lead and backing vocals [1; 5; 10]

Additional personnel

 * Dave Harris - producer, electric guitar, keyboards, vocals
 * Anthony Moore - producer
 * Tim Palmer - engineering, producer