Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt

"I COULD HARDLY recognise him at first," says Kevin Ayers. "But there, under that great beard, was Robert and he hadn't changed a bit." The singer is recalling his reunion after over thirty years' separation, with Robert Wyatt, his former band mate in The Soft Machine. "As wonderful as it was odd", the meeting took place in the summer of 2006 while Ayers was recording his comeback album, The Unfairground, his first record since 1992. In odd, wonderful synchrony. it came out last month only weeks before Wyatt's own Comicopera.