I’ve been thinking these past couple of days about the dubious furore that has been brewing around Jay-Z’s headline slot at Glastonbury, thanks in part to Noel Gallagher weighing in on the subject last week. There are a lot of issues about non-exclusivity, festival overkill, pervading fear of mud and so on that have impacted on Glasto ticket sales this year, which I can’t really be bothered to rehash here. What does interest me, though, is the perceived unsuitability of Jay-Z as a headliner of the festival. If he isn’t right for Glastonbury, then what is? Some things to get out of the way first: obviously, Glastonbury has more acts playing than some festivals have punters, so the idea that unsuspecting campers will be subjected to 72 hours of inescapable, omnipresent hip-hop seems unlikely. It’s about more than the sort of foursquare Britrock exemplified by Oasis, too, which Gallagher characteristically suggested was somehow the ‘authentic’ sound of Glastonbury. After a few barefoot reveries near the stone circle in the ‘90s, I’d be tempted to suggest that the authentic sound of Glastonbury was a gang of sleep-deprived trustafarians drumming in the dawn, or maybe someone playing an Ozric Tentacles CD in a hedge. But I must admit, the idea of something bucolic, a little mystical, redolent of the gorgeous Vale Of Avalon, seems ideal for Glastonbury, in the abstract at least. The thing is, I was thinking about this the other day, and out of all the excellent Glastos I’ve attended, I could barely remember enjoying anything that actually fitted that bill; y’know, rustic, folkish, a tad psychedelic of course. I remember seeing Van Morrison invoking the spirit of Avalon in an incantatory “Summertime In England” back in 1989, which caught something of the local spirit. But listen to “The Common One” now, and it’s songs like “Haunts Of Ancient Peace” (which I’ve never seen Morrison play live, though in fairness I gave up on his live shows at some point in the early ‘90s) which resonate much more strongly. The strongest musical memory I have of Glastonbury that year, as it happens, is something enormously removed from the ancient traditions of England, being a headline set on the Sunday night from Fela Kuti. It’s easy, in the midst of a festival, to get into some dewy-eyed, sentimental rant about the collective joy found in a temporary community, and the indomitable power of music to transcend location. Etc. But here – as with Tinariwen on the Uncut stage at Latitude last year – it made sense. I guess Oasis have that power for many people. But I don’t see how the potency of Jay-Z’s amazing back catalogue need necessarily be depleted by it being played out in a Somerset field. In fact, the odd juxtaposition might just work in its favour. I remember talking to Kieran Hebden a few years ago, around the time he put out “Pause” as Four Tet and brilliantly hybridised electronica with the ambience and root sounds of folk music. Kieran talked about how he would often choose a jarring soundtrack for his life. At home in North London, he’d often listen to folk music. Walking in the country, though, he’d play hip-hop or techno on his headphones. The incongruity didn’t lessen his enjoyment of either the music or his environment – if anything, it enhanced both. In other words, maybe seeing Jay-Z at Glastonbury might be much more entertaining than seeing him in some urban arena. It certainly strikes me as more entertaining than seeing The Levellers there, whose folksy music, woolly idea of a counterculture, and jolly sense of collective effort probably make them, unhappily, the ‘authentic’ Glastonbury band. I can’t, though, think of a band who were better suited to Glastonbury than Orbital, who could be both bucolic and urban, pastoral and euphoric, who drew on the egalitarianism of acid house and gave it an epic richness. But what do you reckon? Maybe we can compile our ideal Glasto line-up – so long, you understand, as we keep Jay-Z and Leonard Cohen on the bill?

It can be quite easy to be sceptical about the endless wave of deluxe reissues that come Uncut’s way most weeks: classic, economical albums stretched over two discs, full of variegated b-sides and out-takes that rarely add much to an artist’s story, really. I am, of course, a big enough nerd to get excited about, say, the juggled alternate mix of Love’s “Forever Changes” that arrived recently. But to be honest, listening to this stuff is like watching a good documentary on BBC4; at the end of it, I feel like I know more about an esoteric corner of history, but I hardly need to watch it again. And so I have shelves of bonus discs at home that we could refer to euphemistically as “research resources”. I don’t quite ascribe to the hardline approach of someone like Lawrence from Felt, Denim and so on, who believes that any extra tracks compromise the artistic purity of an album, but I can certainly see his point. Then something comes along with a bonus disc that harbours music I’ve craved for years, and the whole racket is justified. Dennis Wilson’s “Pacific Ocean Blue” has been unavailable for years, which is obviously a fantastic reason for a CD reissue. But the usefulness of this Epic/Legacy project is intensified by the appearance on Disc 2 of “Bambu”, Wilson’s follow-up, and one of those mythical unreleased albums that measures up to the musty record collector hype which has long surrounded it. For the most part, the “Bambu” songs, recorded through 1977 and ’78, are woozy expansions on Dennis Wilson’s long-time aesthetic – a sort of gruff etherealism, with songs staggering away from easy resolutions, privileging atmospherics over simple hooks. “I Love You” is chiefly plangent piano and soaring, wordless harmonies – two elements which are hardly new territory for a Beach Boy, but which here are given a fractured, classical aura. A damaged grandeur dominates, with epic arrangements contrasting with the degraded nature of Wilson’s vocals. Always husky, at least compared with the saintly tones of his brothers, Wilson’s voice is enormously battered on the likes of the featherlight melodramas of “Love Remember Me”, “It’s Not Too Late” and “Are You Real”. The music is cloudy, meticulously scored yet somehow imprecise, a kind of amorphous rethink of late ‘70s AOR; something here called “Album Tag Song” (on my promo, at least) seems to move towards a gently pulsating kind of prog MOR. Even on the rockers like “Under The Moonlight” (someone here just mentioned Nilsson’s “Pussycats”, appositely), Wilson sounds exhausted. But without fetishising an artist’s physical and mental strife too much, it is his weary effort that makes the track so gripping, moves it away from retro rock’n’roll vamping and towards something odder and more affecting. The Hawaiian shirt flash of “Constant Companion” works similarly. Between the parping horns and snazzy rhythms, you half-expect Jimmy Buffett to emerge, brandishing a cocktail with a sparkler in it. Then Wilson arrives, bedraggled. You can see why the record was never released, not least because of these uneasy commercial juxtapositions: the life and soul of the party sobbing into his margarita. At the same time, remember, The Beach Boys were trying manfully to cash in on the disco scene with “Here Comes The Night”, scrupulously hiding all the messy stuff as best they could. But artistically, “Bambu” is slow dynamite, and the perfect complement to “Pacific Ocean Blue”. Which comes, as well, with a few out-takes including one, “Tug Of Love (Feel The Pull)”, that may be one of the best examples of Wilson’s transcendent-sigh schtick I’ve come across. And with an unfinished demo, “Holy Man”, that has been finished with the addition of a vocal by Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer, and an uncanny mimic of Wilson’s harmonious croak. Clever, but I don’t really see the point. Maybe, in this case, the desire to finish something unfinished has been taken a little too far. . .