Like similar ’70s mid-America bands out of time?The Raspberries and Big Star? Youngstown’s Blue Ash made the mistake of thinking the foundation laid down by The Beatles would be forever the pop template. What was pass

When Eno made these albums in the late ’70s, they were revered but regarded as an isolated cultural incident, a distant throwback to the principles of Erik Satie’s “Furniture Music”and remote from the noisy agitation of punk/post-punk. Only with the afterglow of rave and the likes of The Orb were the ideas systematically and near-perfectly executed by Eno finally taken up. We’re now awash with ambient, but there has been little to match the cerebral yet oddly intuitive beauty of these works. Discreet Music’s elegiac yet eternal synth loop, the uneasily amorphous choral tones of Music For Airports (which are anything but soothing for nervous flyers), the nocturnal swathes of The Plateaux Of Mirror (recorded with Harold Budd) and the eerie naturalism of On Land surpass the bland functionalism of most of the New Age/chill-out aural Radox they prefigured: “Dunwich Beach, Autumn 1960” from On Land conveys it all-nostalgia for a time and a place that you never were.

So, the greatest album never made has finally been made. Thirty-eight years on from its conception, Brian Wilson has painstakingly gathered up all the shattered mosaic pieces, and with the help of the best little tribute ensemble in the world, The Wondermints, has produced a reasonably faithful facsimile of the bold, ambitious masterpiece that nearly cost him his sanity back in 1967. The resulting work, rigorously road-tested during this year’s tour dates, is a 17-track song suite in three movements which clocks in at a second over 47 minutes. As on the Pet Sounds tour of 2002, The Wondermints have proved themselves capable of recreating every last kettle drum thump, banjo pluck and ocarina squeak of the ‘original’. They combine fluidity and muscularity to great effect, particularly on the opening “Heroes And Villains” section, and the intensity they bring to “Mrs O’Leary’s Cow” (aka the legendary “Fire Music”) is worthy of the original unreleased Wrecking Crew performance. Vocally, though, they are clearly not The Beach Boys?but then they’ve never pretended to be.

That consideration aside, it’s immediately noticeable that, compared with the bootleg recordings, the almost hallucinatory tint to the high vocal and Hawaiian chant section of “Roll Plymouth Rock” has been toned down considerably. Likewise the unearthly, and audibly wasted, bottom-end harmonising on “Child Is Father Of The Man” has been smoothed into something less eerie. It all sounds perkier, bouncier, less druggy and barber-shop raga than the performances on those holy grail outtakes.

However, anyone who has seen Brian Wilson struggling with the trickier diction of “Heroes And Villains” or hoarsely gulping his way through the “Auld Lang Syne” section of “Surf’s Up” in recent live performances is going to be pleasantly surprised by the studio versions. The timbre of that aged voice brings an unexpected richness to all three of SMiLE’s lynchpin moments: “Heroes And Villains”, “Surf’s Up” and “Cabinessence”. The latter’s “crow-flies” coda now evokes the spirit of Walt Whitman rather than a pissed-off Mike Love complaining about acid-alliteration.

The tonal, harmonic and lyrical sophistication of the second section alone (“Wonderful”, “Song For Children”, “Child Is Father Of The Man”, “Surf’s Up”) virtually justifies the entire project. Did Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks ever create a more beautiful song than “Wonderful”? And did Brian ever have a more appropriately idiosyncratic collaborator? Listening to this work afresh, forged as it was in the lysergic-tinged tumult of the mid-’60s, it’s noticeable how much of it harks back, both lyrically and musically, to the past.

Those who wish to heap gravitas upon SMiLE will offer up comparisons to Charles Ives and Aaron Copland, but they might just as well have cited Hoagy Carmichael and Cole Porter. For a supposed pinnacle of pop-modernism, it’s pretty trad, Dad. “I’m In Great Shape”, one of the previously unheard great lost tracks from the original project, turns out to be a pleasingly upbeat raggedy little waltz which commences the third and arguably least cohesive movement. As on the recent tour dates, the somewhat miscellaneous grouping together of “Workshop”, “Vega-tables”, “On A Holiday”, “Wind Chimes” etc, sounds overcrowded and over-condensed. And there’s little in this uneven section to dispel the notion that the tracks which make up the so-called “Elements Suite” would perhaps have worked better as a totally separate project, an extended tone poem which would either have taken The Beach Boys’ harmonic interplay to new heights of intricacy and abstraction, or would have ended their commercial career in one cornfield-circling swoop. But I think that’s where we all came in, isn’t it?

SMiLE is, and always clearly was, thematically overloaded, but inherent in that over-reaching, in Brian’s obsessive quest to realise his “teenage symphony to God”, in Van Dyke’s attempt to weave a grand narrative of elliptical Americana, in its dumb angelic humour and innocence, lies the album’s true worth.

Viewed as a bunch of miscellaneous songs, it’s still pretty damn impressive. As rock’n’roll Icarus moments go, I’m not sure anyone will ever fly closer to the sun and live to retell the tale. In the recent rush to eulogise, or, in a few notably grumpy cases to pour scorn on the live concerts, few reviewers seemed to notice the most significant occurrence of those evenings. The split between those who were there to pay homage to a great lost masterwork and those who just wanted The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits was palpable, especially at the provincial gigs. At the Liverpool and Manchester shows in particular, you could almost hear the sighs of relief as those who had sat patiently through all that wood-chopping and fireman’s helmet nonsense sprang joyously to their feet to frug along to “Good Vibrations” and the crowd-pleasing encores of “Help Me Rhonda” and “Fun Fun Fun”.

In that reluctance to embrace SMiLE’s brave, bold ambition, we finally got a definitive answer to the great What If… If SMiLE could still baffle and confound the mainstream audience now, how on earth would they have greeted it in 1967?

And those of us who subscribe to the situationist maxim, “Be reasonable, demand the impossible,” well, we finally got our wish. Sessionographers and bootleg archivists will continue to quibble about the running order (and ending with “Good Vibrations” rather than the cyclical reprise of “Surf’s Up” does seem like a sop somehow).

Meanwhile the musicologists can, and should, continue to hypothesise about the project’s tortured and turbulent genealogy and cultural significance. And, hey, maybe one day they’ll release a deluxe connoisseurs’ box set with a bonus CD of those original bootleg bits which sustained us devotees through the wilderness years, and which now suddenly sound like blissed-out, airy, ambient relics from a bygone era compared with the brisk, robust confidence of the 21st-century model.

But for now, though, unless McCartney is about to do something amazing with those “Carnival Of Light” tapes, SMiLE is likely to remain a unique and unlikely moment of retrieval, restoration and renaissance.

“This album is all about the war. This doesn’t mean that I think any of the particular songs are about the war or that any of the songs are protests over it. All I mean to say is…that there is an awareness contained within the mood of the album as a whole.”

That was Jon Landau, writing in 1967 about Dylan’s cryptic, elliptical John Wesley Harding. But his words might do just as well to describe Around The Sun. Certainly, the rueful, stately single “Leaving New York” gave the lie to the idea that this was going to be a batch of simple protests against “Ignoreland”. If the record leaves NY, it’s only to touch down in a hesitant heartland, a country bordered by regret and fear, where everything’s at stake. These 13 songs are sung by people exhausted by the trials of their country, haunted by ghosts of its promise, tentatively hopeful of renewal or reconciliation. While the record doesn’t shy from directly addressing the state of the union (an early draft of “Final Straw” was made available for download in protest against the invasion of Iraq), its strength lies in its willingness to dramatise rather than hector, in its fearful sympathies and quiet commitments.

Its secret motto might be Stipe’s line from 1985: “The thing to fear is fearlessness”. A key track here is “The Outsiders”, an eerie, spectral dream-song swirled in misty synths, remembering a “day that the music stopped”. There’s a storm coming, shadowy outsiders are gathering, and the singer has to take sides, but he’s “lost in regret”, fear “all across his face”. Fading out, his indecision is replaced by the determination of a rapper summoning up the spirit of Martin Luther King, repeating “I am not afraid”. And, suddenly, the song strikes a new chord of memory, and you might hear in the title an echo of King’s letter from jail in 1963: “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Yet many of the songs here are sung by outsiders wavering on the point of becoming deserters. “The Boy In The Well” is a baleful, bushwhacked cousin of “Drive”, its singer walking away from a town going wrong, warning that the “water is rising, you know what it’s bringing… you don’t want to stay”. You can hear this note of exile and disgust in the high, weird grace of “I Wanted To Be Wrong”, sung by someone stuck in a Yul Brynner “Westworld” where “everyone is singing a song that I don’t understand”.

There are few upbeat moments on the record, which often recalls 1992’s Automatic For The People in its sobriety of purpose. There’s the crackling neon guitar on “Electron Blue” (a bad-trip flip of “Electrolite”), the oddly jaunty “Wanderlust” and the sweet AI Green blues of “The Ascent Of Man”. But it’s not without hope. You might hear a hint in the kitchen-sink drama of “Aftermath” where the radio stutters but “some sour song, it sets it right”, and cold comfort is found in making hindsight sense of dread and grief.

But the closer, the title track, offers an ambiguous earthbound prayer. It’s a prayer against quitting, to the possibility of a voice “strong enough to let me question what I see”. And when it fades out with a ringing “Let these dreams set me free”, you have to wonder: does the singer want to be free of the dreams? Is he exhausted by their demands? Or are they the only thing keeping him going? Around The Sun is rich enough to let you draw your own conclusions.

Norman Cook may represent the idiot-grinning soundtrack of choice for naff advertising execs, but there is still something life-affirming about the bounce and brashness of the Fatboy’s fourth album?especially after the overly manicured maturity of Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars four years ago. Having co-produced Blur’s Think Tank last year, Cook recruits Damon Albarn for the sleepy-eyed country-soul jam “Put It Back”, while Bootsy Collins guests on a rubbish cover of Steve Miller’s “The Joker”. There are more live instruments and vocalists than usual, but otherwise that gloriously stupid clod-hopping mash-up formula remains. Bubblegum for the ears? Sure, that’s pop music.

Baker’s opulent contralto is so symbolic of a certain strain of ’80s soul that she warranted a first name shout on the recent Twista/Kanye West smash “Slow Jamz”. Her ‘female Luther Vandross’ tag was, however, a mixed blessing and, by the time of her last LP, Rhythm Of Love (1994), her appeal had faded. A decade of child-rearing domesticity has neither stimulated her songwriting nor altered a vocal approach which holds back as much as it lets loose. The tasteful production, cast of svelte session men and duet with Babyface will all ensure heavy rotation on Jazz FM. But she’s all suffocating style, no sweat.

The bewildering odyssey of Camper Van Beethoven was seemingly dead in 1989, struck down in acrimony following the band’s second and final major label album, Key Lime Pie. But sporadic catalogue releases and live touring, beginning in 1999, convinced them that a resurrection was on the cards. The result: a sprawling concept album using today’s sociopolitical chaos as a backdrop for its protagonist’s ramble through subcultures of all stripes and ideologies. Not to worry, though, the band’s trademark cracked songcraft?from oddball Middle Eastern instrumentals to arch Kaleidoscope (US)-type rockers to picture-perfect folk-rock?is here in spades.

Initially, the debut LP by the New York-based newcomers Inouk sounds worryingly like the work of our own Muse?a hilariously overcooked stew of wildly incompatible ingredients. But No Danger is rather a cogent and brilliantly wrought rewriting of the alt.rock rulebook. Using Flaming Lips’ psychedelia as their launchpad and buoyed up by the McMahon brothers’ celestial vocals, Inouk streak heavenward, remodelling My Morning Jacket, The Beach Boys, Bowie, Dylan, Shudder To Think, The Stone Roses and (bizarrely) Suede in their own image as they go. Fabulously foolhardy stuff.

It’s not totally unreasonable to argue that The 5,6,7,8’s should be seen and not heard, or at least not heard without being seen. On stage and on film (Kill Bill Vol 1), their collision of Suzie Wong fashions and ropey Cramps riffs makes perfect sense. Divorced of the former, their pigeon-English clattering often sounds mindless. Even so, in measured doses, like the Uma-carnage-backdrop of “I’m Blue” or the Zeppelin holler of “Let’s Go Boogaloo”, theirs is still a savage, trash karate chop worth succumbing to.

You have to admire his nerve, at least. Neil McCormick, a musical hobbyist whose day job is pop columnist for The Daily Telegraph, goes from poacher to gamekeeper with this self-released, derivative debut album.

Mostly composed of MOR saloon-bar rock, Mortal Coil is competent enough, but too obviously indebted to the canon of greats?Dylan and Van Morrison, especially?to break any new ground.

McCormick has a passable voice that would not shame the average middle-rank indie band, but lyrical banalities are his Achilles Heel. From an accomplished and witty writer like McCormick, it’s seriously lacking in bite or insight.

Rock legends exiled from Main St by a commendable knack for career chaos, Royal Trux are the stuff of loose, lackadaisical legend. With Neil Hagerty departed, Jennifer Herrema, after two years’ down-time, brings them roaring back as hellbent three-piece RTX. Biker-chic, Satan-friendly, it’s rock’n’ roll as primal as a pulse, yet layered with sci-fi screeches and industrial intensity. Produced sloppily, it nods to Alice Cooper, yet still it makes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound like Texas.

Dirty in all the right crevices.

There’s a dark rumble to Massive Attack’s instrumental score for this Luc Besson-produced martial arts movie, arranged by Robert Del Naja and Neil Davidge in 21 miniature sequences. Many of these are a minute or so long, so it’s hard to cite them as anything special, and the nagging feeling persists that there’s been an element of smoke and mirrors about this outfit’s fashionable misery since their heyday. Those pieces that are allowed time to breathe suggest greater depths, like “One Thought At A Time”, which clocks in at a whopping four minutes plus. Obsessives will find much meaning herein: it’s all a bit studio-noodly and so-what to a non-believer layman.

While There’s Much wrong (the script, the acting, the smugness) with Channel 4’s slick, rather silly series about transatlantic lovers who are struggling against the odds but, like, have shedloads of money, the soundtrack’s wilfully hip. Granted it’s put together by the kind of people who think Snow Patrol are cutting edge, but in liking what the music press has told them to like, they’ve packed an impressive stash of new-ish white boy music onto this. If it gives up on representing just the cities of New York and London, settling for the looser brief of sharing fairly between the US and the UK, that’s probably wise. There are only seven bands in New York anyway, and three of those formed to cash in on The Strokes.

When America gets it right, it gets it very right. Here, The Rapture are soulful and sigh-drenched on “Open Up Your Heart”, using broken falsetto and the drum pattern from Bowie’s “Five Years” to direct a hymn to Young’s “After The Gold Rush” through a map of melancholy. Radio 4 are thrillingly direct, raising the ante on those recycled Gang Of Four rhythms and finding streamlined guitar sounds even Franz Ferdinand would kill for. The geography’s then forgotten, but Josh Rouse’s soft-spoken “Rise” is a purring passage of beauty and The Sleepy Jackson’s “Mourning Rain” mumbles manfully.

Joy Zipper jump into revitalised shoegazing territory, then the Brits are at their laziest as The Charlatans and Eighties Matchbox go through their emotionless motions. But the derivative Razorlight are full of cocky fire on “Action!” and Chungking do choice Lene Lovich funk-pop, while Bell X1’s “Eve, The Apple Of My Eye” is surprisingly torn and touching. The undervalued I Am Kloot’s “Proof” is witty, wry, despairing and literate.

England’s dreaming wins, by a nose.

Chantal Passamonte, aka Mira Calix, is a highly individual talent in the left-field sector. While many of her contemporaries rarely look beyond cuts’n’glitch orthodoxies, her two previous albums signposted an extensive and audacious range. This clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed. Geneva’s Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, for instance, commissioned her to compose a piece of music using insect noises.

The original version here of “Nunu” brilliantly morphs studio-piloted drones with naturally generated clicks and chirps. Elsewhere “Le Jardin de Barbican” (for London’s Barbican Centre) is a floating, hallucinogenic carnival of tinderbox chimes and neo-classical string sweeps.

Despite the departure of co-writer Tadas Kisielius to Seattle midway through recording, More Deep Cuts finds Dee Kesler’s Thee More Shallows Hexing their muscles far more than on their 2002 debut. A distillation of much of the last decade’s best US indie, it draws upon the likes of The Flaming Lips and Grandaddy’s Under The Western Freeway, melding these with more atmospheric, meditative influences like Slint. Kesler’s softly spoken vocals provide a focus around which his songs blossom in an often euphoric fashion, and the inspired use of strings and toy pianos to flesh out the sound is never overstretched. Deeply addictive.

DeVille, a Crescent City resident since the early ’90s, goes deep into the city’s musical history and mythology. Tribal rhythms fuel “Chieva”‘s twisted romance with “the needle and spoon”, and the funereal title track is dedicated to the late great arranger, DeVille collaborator and deeply troubled soul Jack Nitzsche.

Elsewhere, DeVille continues to excel at conjuring new tricks from old genres?Drifters-scented barrio pop, booming melodrama and accordion-laced trysts are rendered with verve and sensitivity. An ill-conceived Tom Waits/Captain Beefheart-style Muddy Waters tribute and the dreary “Slave To Love” apart, a welcome slice of swamp-pop heaven.