The first time I heard Devendra Banhart, I remember thinking that there was something ineffably creepy about him. I loved "Oh Me Oh My. . .", but it felt an eerie, almost malign record, and the impression was compounded at his first London show, supporting Michael Gira. Banhart didn't seem dangerous, exactly, but his otherness was somehow disturbing, as well as compelling. It's funny thinking back, because in the interim Banhart seems to have become the indie world's pet hippy, a benign prankster who radiates love for music, spiders, humanity, his beard, and the vast array of fine artists he has nurtured, played with and championed over the past five years. I can't think of many other musicians in that time who have informed my taste so much, whose proselytizing have turned me on to so much great music. There's a danger, though, that maybe people don't take Banhart seriously enough now. That his open-hearted cheerleading and kindergarten flights of fantasy leave him looking substantially more lightweight than he really is. Hopefully, "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon" should remedy that. It's a very long record, and there's still a fair bit of mucking about on it. But at heart, this is a beautifully-realised piece of work: an album recorded in LA's Topanga Canyon that taps into the local vibes (the airy, dislocated majesty of David Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name" is a key text here) and Banhart's South American heritage (on the likes of "Samba Vexillographica", he emerges as a potent heir to Caetano Veloso) to describe the end of a love affair. "Smokey Rolls" isn't really an acid-folk album: it's much grander and more complicated than that, as the "Seahorse" track I linked to yesterday proves. At its best, there's a stately, stoned grace to it all, with woody acoustics and chamber strings weaving around Banhart's frank confessions of romantic dislocation. In this vein, "Bad Girl", "I Remember", "My Dearest Friend" and "Freely" are some of the best songs Banhart has ever written. Elsewhere, his attempts to stretch out are pretty successful - even the rabbinical doo-wop number, "Shabop Shalom". Only a run of stylistic flip-flops - gospel ("Saved"), Jackson 5 pop ("Lover"), salsa ("Carmensita"), reggae ("The Other Woman") - though individually brilliant, feel a bit like exercises in pastiche when they're bunched together. But this is a minor gripe, really, about such an absorbing record. It reveals that Devendra Banhart is a good enough songwriter to transcend the eccentricities which have, thus far into his career, been most prominent. And now he's claimed, in the current issue of Uncut, that he's not really a hippy, then you don't even have to be put off by that. . .

I remembered to bring in some Lee Hazlewood this morning, so we're starting the day with "Requiem For An Almost Lady". John Robinson, our Reviews Editor, just told me how he once received a "hate fax" from the great man, after calling him, affectionately, a "prickly old bastard" in a live preview. "Dear John," Hazlewood wrote, "referring to someone as a prickly old bastard may be fine and proper where you come from, but in Texas it could be a call for the loosening of some, if not all, of your teeth." On to "Cowboy In Sweden" now, and the fantastic "Leather & Lace", and it occurs me that Hazlewood could be seen as a kind of American Serge Gainsbourg; a lugubrious prankster, embedded in his country's cultural traditions but wryly subverting them at the same time. Both of them liked playing the beast in theatrical, sexually fraught duets, too, of course. The big difference between the two, I guess, is that Gainsbourg is revered in France, while Hazlewood's influence in America has been more covert. Hazlewood, let's not forget, helped sire the careers of Duane Eddy, Phil Spector and Gram Parsons, as well as authoring his own rich narratives. We'll play some more as the day goes on. Couple of other things to have a look at today. One is a big teaser for the Devendra Banhart album, which, yes, I really will try and preview before the end of the week. This is a lovely video for "Seahorse", which shows Banhart and his chums (the one without the beard is Gael Garcia Bernal, incidentally) pottering about their Topanga Canyon home studio while one of the highlights from "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon" reveals itself to be yet another epic David Crosby/"Golden Brown"/Jim Morrison & Crazy Horse hybrid. Next up, check out this ridiculous new video from Kanye West. It's not the "Stronger" tune which features Daft Punk, but a much weaker, I-am-famous whinge called "Can't Tell Me Nothing" which might just be the worst thing West has ever done (I might try and hear the new album next week, so bear with me on this one). Never mind the music, though. The video doesn't feature West, but instead stars some American comic called Zach Galifianakis who I must admit I've never heard of. Galifianakis, is a hairy redneck farmer with a chainsaw, who mimes along to West's portentous waffle while cavorting over some heavy agricultural machinery. As is traditional with rap videos, Galifianakis has some mean-looking guy loitering behind him as moral support, who turns up to be Will Oldham, hamming brilliantly. If you've ever longed to see Bonnie Prince Billy booty dancing near some cows, or dry-humping a digger - and come on, haven't we all? - here's your chance.

It's been a couple of months since I wrote about Robert Wyatt's excellent "Comicopera", which still isn't out until October. In the meantime, one of Wyatt's old sparring partners has sneaked under the wire ahead of him. Kevin Ayers, of all people, has a new album out at the start of September, and it's rather good. Apparently, this is the first Ayers album for about 15 years, though I must admit I haven't followed his career very assiduously. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard anything by him beyond those first four lovely solo albums. Consequently, I guess this won't be the most informed, heavily contextualised preview I've ever written. From what I can tell, Ayers seems to have been mooching about the south of France for an extraordinarily long time, probably doing not much more than some fairly concerted wine-tasting. We spent a while yesterday trying to work out what he lives on - does he have independent means, maybe? But Ayers always comes across as one of those charming, insouciant wasters who sort of glide through life untroubled by the dreary realities that trouble the rest of us. In fact, listening to "The Unfairground", Ayers tackles angst, romantic mishaps and fear of ageing with a sort of rueful shrug. I've seen his voice compared to Nick Drake in the past, and while's there's a certain fruity Englishness which they both share, Ayers doesn't really do grief. On "Cold Shoulder" here, he ponders, "I don't understand anything any more as I grow older." But even then, he carries off something approaching depression with a peculiar jauntiness. I guess in the past, Ayers' main weapon against the black-eyed dog was whimsy. But on "The Unfairground", the quirks have mostly mellowed out into a more reflective archness. There are moments of oddness; the title track's skittish fairground music being the most obvious. Mostly, though, Ayers ambles through these gently beguiling songs like an old rogue who has fallen into the company of some indulgent new friends. A lot of the music here is provided by The Ladybug Transistor - a New York band whose gifts for indie-baroque have previously been undermined by some fairly weedy songwriting - and a staunch bunch of janglers corralled by Teenage Fanclub's redoubtable Norman Blake. I think it's Blake, Euros Childs and co adding distantly roistering harmonies to the great "Run Run Run". But elsewhere, Ayers calls on older friends. Robert Wyatt guests as The Wyattron, a heavily treated harmony on "Cold Shoulder" that recalls Eno's metamorphosis into the Enotron on Wyatt's own records. Phil Manzanera, another of Wyatt's crew, adds some faintly threatening freak-out in the background of "Brainstorm". By Ayers' standards, this one glowers intensely. But even when he sings, "Shout! Scream! Give me back my dreams," he sounds too amused to be angry. Best of all, the elusive Bridget St John duets on "Baby Come Home", a romantic gambol with the rich brass band trim that's a hallmark of this whole, immensely pleasant record. Corny fuck that I am, I'll be taking this on holiday to the South-West of France with me in a couple of weeks. A bientot. . .