Given this quartet’s formidable musical pedigree (including three ex-members of Stomu Yamashta’s Go) you’d be forgiven for expecting an onslaught of ferociously indulgent fusion. Not a bit of it. “One And One” and “Newspapers” are as desolately soulful as Station To Station-era Bowie, while “Coming Through” evokes a less clever-clever Steely Dan. Stand-out track “My Pearl” is just waiting for the right ’70s movie soundtrack to do what Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights did for ELO. Guitarist Pat Thrall’s Hendrix tendencies are fully indulged on “There’s A Way” and the title track, but overall it’s only the frequent references to “Lay-dees” that anchor this album to 1976.

It’s sadly probable that only a handful of people reading this review will have heard of Siebel, let alone the music he made on these two incredible records. Originally released in 1970 and 1971, they quickly disappeared without trace, vinyl chimera, as did, soon after, Siebel, their charismatic author.

What acknowledgement they received at the time was unbelievably meagre, but often ecstatic. For those of us fortunate enough to have heard them on first release, these LPs were testaments to a breathtaking talent, whose genius flared briefly, but brilliantly enough to be mentioned in the same breath as any of the songwriting legends who rode the folk and country rock booms of the ’60s and early ’70s, from Dylan to Gram Parsons. Much revered by his contemporaries, Siebel simply blew out of town after Jack-Knife Gypsy, destination: obscurity.

He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1937, studied at the university there and later spent time in the US Army. By 1965, after serving a musical apprenticeship in the clubs and coffee houses in Buffalo, he was in Greenwich Village, playing the usual haunts. Inspired by Hank Williams and Dylan, he was also by now writing the exceptional songs that eventually got him signed to Elektra, who bankrolled the four three-hour sessions it took to record Woodsmoke And Oranges.

With fiddles, acoustic guitars, occasional pedal steel and Siebel’s glorious voice to the fore, Woodsmoke’s honky tonk exuberance, backporch ruminations and broken-hearted ballads are more than passingly reminiscent of Gram Parsons’ first solo album, GP. It would be fair to say from some of these songs that Siebel’s view of love is somewhat more than jaundiced, and there’s a cruel, misogynous edge to cuts like “Miss Cherry Lane”. More typical, however, of Siebel’s temperament is the dream-like reverie of “Long Afternoons”, a requiem for lost love set to one of his most achingly affecting melodies?as keenly piercing as anything on Blood On The Tracks. Siebel also has an unflinching eye for the sad detail of emotional trauma. The best of his early songs?”Louise” and “Bride 1945”?are models of narrative clarity, deeply moving portraits of a lonely truckstop whore and a young war bride, the two women separately condemned to lives of mutual disappointment and serial unhappiness. If he’d never written anything else, they alone would justify Siebel’s reputation as one of the finest songwriters of his time.

Those who heard it and got it loved Woodsmoke, but it sold poorly. Elektra gave Siebel another chance, however, and with a band of crack session men?including Byrds guitarist Clarence White?he recorded Jack-Knife Gypsy, which is by turns ravishing, forlorn, ecstatic, delirious and ultimately bleak beyond words. Dylan’s influence is again enormous-especially on the dark and menacing title track?with Siebel revelling in the vernacular story-telling styles of The Basement Tapes and John Wesley Harding. Elsewhere, there’s the rhapsodic “Prayer Song”, the desperate “If I Could Stay” and?best of all?the desolate introspection of “Chips Are Down”, one of the most self-lacerating songs ever written.

Disappointed by poor sales, Siebel went into artistic decline, writer’s block giving way to addiction, depression and self-destruction. He was last heard of, in 1996, working as a bread-maker in a caf

The Incredible String Band (1966) is a more-or-less conventional Scots-trad folk effort by the original trio of Robin Williamson, Mike Heron and Clive Palmer. Dancing over banjos, mandolins and fiddles, Williamson’s high, nimble tenor contrasts nicely with Heron’s more sardonic, Dylan-meets-Richard-Thompson tone.

The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion (1967) saw the duo of Heron and Williamson boldly going where folk had ne’er trod, adding exotic global-village instruments (sitar, oud, tamboura et al) to the Highland foundations and treating tradition with irreverent psychedelic whimsy.

Of all the bands on Island Records’ impressive late-’60s roster, Notting Hill rock’n’ragamuffins Quintessence divided audiences more than most. Although many were enthralled by their rich blend of hippie drift and Eastern drones, others found their brand of religiosity a little over-earnest. A somewhat wayward rhythm section didn’t help either, but in flautist Raja Ram and guitarist Allan Mostert they had free-form instrumentalists of the highest calibre.

Raja Ram’s echo-unit bird song gave an early indication that he would end up making Goa trance records 20 years further down the line, while Mostert’s soaring, exploratory guitar work, particularly on the second album’s live tracks, resists all attempts from his more grounded colleagues to root it in stodgy 12-bar.

ALL ATLANTIC JAZZ MASTERS

Bassist Charles Mingus’ turbulent personal history (as outlined by his infamous autobiography, Beneath The Underdog) was always extremely apparent in his raucous and relentlessly danceable take on both modern and traditional jazz.

Although it’s generally agreed he reached his peak on the two classic albums he made for the Impulse! label in the mid-’60s (The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady; Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus), there’s much to admire in the records that immediately preceded them.

These three albums amply showcase both Mingus’ wild momentum and his hollering call-and-response style (The Clown is dominated by his exhortations to his fellow players). The standout here, however, is definitely 1961’s Oh Yeah, which sees the addition of inspired tenor saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk and a surreal sound that reaches its peak on the apocalyptic “Hog Callin’ Blues”, a song that could teach The White Stripes something about the genre.

Lou Johnson’s life is a mystery; he retired from a failed music career in 1971, and has since disappeared utterly. But the originator of Bacharach and David standards like “Walk On By” was a fine if thwarted soul man. This first of only two LPs was recorded in 1968 at FAME for Atlantic, and so boasts songwriting and arrangements equal to Sinatra in his prime (Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin man the decks), but Johnson’s voice is still the star. Cutting loose majestically but sparingly with raw rasps and hollers, he’s just as effective on Don Covay’s controlled, conversational lament for love’s casualties, “I Can’t Change”. A 30-minute masterpiece.

When imported ’80s synth-pop ruled the airwaves, Steve Wynn’s Dream Syndicate lay in thrall to the time-honoured buzz of the Marshall stack. By mid-decade, they were at the forefront of the new American breed that, in turn, helped repopularise the guitar back across the Atlantic. The final studio album, 1988’s Ghost Stories, gets eight add-ons from radio shows, but it’s 1989’s blistering Live At Raji’s that knocks you sideways. Fully restored across two CDs (now including early classics “Tell Me When It’s Over” and “When You Smile”), it’s the fret-crunching stomp of a band intuitively grasping the punk/garage dynamic.

How many pop stars would be cheeky and intelligent enough to incorporate quotes from Joe Orton and Nietzsche in the same song (“The Magnificent Five”)? How many would dare to juxtapose Sartre quotations?in French?with “knock it on the head and go for a curry”? (“Ant Rap,” a Top 3 hit over Christmas 1981 which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on PiL’s Flowers Of Romance?). Adam Ant?and his right-hand man Marco Pirroni?did it, over and over again, throughout the early 1980s, virtually paving the way for post-punk to be supplanted by New Pop.

How? It was partly inspired by revenge?Adam having seen his original band stolen by Malcolm McLaren to form Bow Wow Wow, he and Pirroni decided to outdo McLaren at his own game, to marry the Burundi beat/tribal warpaint concept with whatever came to hand.

Thus Kings Of The Wild Frontier was 1980’s equivalent of The Avalanches’ Since I Left You?riffs and philosophies plundered from everywhere to form an unrepeatable fusion of Duane Eddy/Keith Levene guitars (check the appropriation of Link Wray’s “Rumble” for “Killer In The Home”), Morricone echoing chants and John Barry chord sequences. “Dog Eat Dog” was as startling and untraceable a reinvention of pop as “Virginia Plain” had been eight years previously. And “Antmusic” was the first anti-rockist pop single (“Rock music’s lost its taste!”).

By 1981, Adam was a superstar, but criticisms of going soft seem severely out of place?”Prince Charming” really is the strangest of No 1s, like Wire playing “Catch A Falling Star”, while the accompanying album saw the Ants run the gamut from blaxploitation themes (“Scorpios”) to early post-rock (“S.E.X.”). And 1982 hits like “Friend Or Foe” or “Desperate But Not Serious” come across like a post-punk Dexys?blaring horns shadowing troubled lyrics.

Strangely, however, the one album in this collection which sounds as though it was made last week is 1979’s pre-fame Dirk Wears White Sox, recorded with the original Ants?a brilliant fusion of all the poppier post-punk trends of the time which has aged incredibly well, including two stunning singles in “Cartrouble” and “Xerox,” as well as quoting from Marinetti (“Animals & Men”) four years before The Art Of Noise. Franz Ferdinand, for one, definitely started here, and so should you.

McCracklin was 42 when he joined Imperial in 1963, already a veteran of World War ll, blues and rock’n’roll. He maintained a presence on the R&B chart for the label throughout the decade, despite the rapidly changing, soul-powered times (ruefully confronted on this collection’s title track). But what’s striking are the sounds of jump blues and jazz in these so-called soul records, a thread surviving from the ’40s jukeboxes on which McCracklin was first heard right up to the Black Panthers’ day.

McCracklin’s oddly frail voice and facilely skilful songwriting (from dance-craze novelties to relationship rows) add to the feel of time out of joint. A charming curio.

By the time George Harrison began championing his 1969 Apple single “King Of Fuh”, Friedland had already been a moderately successful songwriter for Del Shannon and The Creation, as well as a member of Brooklyn’s The Tokens (see 1961’s “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”). Unsurprisingly, the aforementioned 45 was slapped with a blanket radio ban (the chorus?wait for it?twisted the words around. Bonkers, eh?) and Extemporaneous was issued on The Tokens’ own imprint. Recorded studio-live before a maddeningly fawning crowd, it’s a kind of aural improv equivalent of Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing In America, minus the style or cutting imagery. What strives for inspired surreality?between Zappa, Lord Buckley and Edward Lear?instead sounds like Richard Stilgoe in a Dada dreamcoat. A pity. Barrett-esque bonus track “Nobody Knows What’s Goin’ On In My Mind But Me” is a psychedelic flicker of what might have been.

By 1967, rock’n’roll’s voracious appetite for new sounds had drawn it unexpectedly close to another countercultural phenomenon: the classical avant-garde. John Cale, a former student of LaMonte Young, was introducing minimalist drone to The Velvet Underground. Paul McCartney was becoming diverted by the musique concr

Probably premature but nonetheless welcome repackaging of the Dukes Of Yearn’s entire catalogue, with multiple extras. While their one room of gloom is now rather (over?) familiar, their slow-burning debut was as exhilarating to the music press as The Strokes were a decade later, a doused beacon in a wheelie-bin of grins. The demos are added here, while the great live album from the Bloomsbury Theatre (1995) accompanies the equally dour but darkly delicious follow-up (highlights: “No More Affairs”, “Tiny Tears”). Undervalued heartbreak classic Curtains shrugs out some rarities and B-sides, while N

Nina Nastasia’s debut from 1999 has been fetishised as a Great Lost Album of sorts, thanks to the excellence of her two follow-ups and uncharacteristically fulsome praise from producer Steve Albini. Finally given a wide release, Dogs measures up strikingly well to its legend. Fans of The Blackened Air and Run To Ruin will know what to expect: frail, oblique narratives full of junkies and dog metaphors; a singer who sounds at once unblemished and world-weary; chamber-folk arrangements that are intricate but never overblown. Dogs, though, has more range than its successors (“Nobody Knew Her” is a surprisingly full-blooded rock song) and?in “Stormy Weather”, “Jimmy’s Rose Tattoo” and “All Your Life”?some of Nastasia’s very best songs. As a singer/songwriter who can describe heightened emotional states with an undemonstrative elegance, she has few contemporary equals.

The Wondermints’ replication of Pet Sounds and Smile on those recent revelatory tours has given them acclaim by association. But like The High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan, also roped in by Wilson before now to try to simulate former glories, these Californians have little of their own to offer. Bland voices and lyrics so vapid they barely exist, arrangements that studiously avoid originality?it could hardly be further from the wonder of Wilson in his prime, or Van Dyke Parks’ arcane foibles. Only the explicitly McCartneyesque “Another Way” has a decent tune, and Wilson’s backing vocals are inconsequential. What, please, is the point?