They’d already mucked about in psych-rock group The Wilde Flowers, and spent time with relocated Australian beatnik Daevid Allen, who would go on to pilot Gong through many line-ups over the years. But on their debut, self-titled album, The Soft Machine’s first, and perhaps best, line-up of Kevin Ayers (bass, vocals) and Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), joined by organist Mike Ratledge, were finding their feet, navigating terrain somewhere between psychedelia, progressive rock, and jazz, all of which were informed by a kind of playful whimsy that’d disappear after their first few albums, when the fusion took over. For now, though, The Soft Machine gave us some beautiful melodies – Hugh Hopper’s heartbreaking contribution “A Certain Kind”, Kevin Ayers’s pop epic “Why Are We Sleeping” – and plenty of exploration, from the monolithic, hyper-repetitive “We Did It Again”, to the infinitely flexible, tentacling, rutting improvisation found in the “Hope For Happiness” / “Joy Of A Toy” trilogy. Ayers left the group soon enough, which disbanded for a brief time after an American tour with The Jimi Hendrix Experience. But this was far from the end; rather, a most auspicious beginning.