Written by Karl Jenkins, Soft Machine's final record was produced by Mike Thorne, who also had just produced Wire's trailblazing trilogy of art-rock albums for the Harvest label. The record's title refers to a medieval land of plenty, and plenty of diverse tracks is what the album holds. Released in 1981, Land of Cockayne arrived well past Soft Machine's sell-by date; their previous studio album was 1976's Softs, with a live album recorded and released the following year.

By 1973, Soft Machine was down to one original member, organist Mike Ratledge, and three former Nucleus members, sax and pianist Karl Jenkins, bassist Roy Babbington and drummer John Marshall. The band then switched labels to EMI's Harvest Records, and in an act unprecedented since their very beginnings, forwent with numbering for their next album's title, Bundles. Also, unprecedented since their first single (though perhaps precipitated by an NDR session with Isotope's Gary Boyle in 1973), was the arrival of a guitarist, Allan Holdsworth.