Shooting At The Moon

For his second release, Shooting At The Moon, Ayers left his Soft Machine cohorts behind and assembled his first band, the Whole World. Composer/keyboardist David Bedford carried over, but new on deck were busker-extraordinaire/saxophonist Lol Coxhill and a young Mike Oldfield on bass. Various drummers would round out the lineup, including Robert Wyatt and Dave Dufort; but Mick Fincher filled in for this album. And what a weird album it is! "May I?" opens, an archetypical Ayers ballad. Bluesy, sexy and oh-so decadent, it showcases his keen songwriting talent. From there the album bounces from Softs-esque psychedelia to pure Dada nonsense and back, before recovering with the playful "Clarence In Wonderland" and its wonderful chorus. It's a tune he would perform during his brief 1971 stint with Gong. The album closes with "Shooting at the Moon," a song that Soft Machine performed as "Jet-Propelled Photograph" during Ayers tenure with the band. He would record another two albums for Harvest, Whatevershebringswesing and Bananamour. Released in 1972 and 1973 respectively, the former featured the Whole World and Didier Malherbe, while the latter saw bassist Archie Legget and drummer Eddie Sparrow on deck. Both are full of onomatopoeia, Dada, would-be hits, off-kilter arrangements and brilliant songwriting, always attracting critical acclaim but never earning commercial success. Even the should-have-been-a-hit single "Caribbean Moon" b/w "Take Me to Tahiti," released in 1973, somehow failed (be sure to watch the promotional film). Harvest would later release a compilation album from this period of singles and sundry tracks, appropriately titled Odd Ditties, in 1976.