POP

BRIAN WILSON
That Lucky Old Sun (EMI)
**
The good news is that Lucky Old Sun tells us that Brian can still find his way to the recording studio. The bad news is that he doesn't really know what to do when he gets there. The record is essentially a rehash of the Beach Boys' finest hours, vocal harmonies swelling like surf about to break. The problem is that there are no melodies worthy of this celestial treatment. Like Ray Davies, our nearest equivalent, this is a writer who has mislaid his muse. Instead of a glimpse of paradise, this is merely a postcard from Los Angeles.
PETE CLARK

HAMES YORKSTON
When the Haar Rolls In (Domino)
****
When James Yorkston opens his fourth album with a song about “the lines on my face and my aged appearance”, you expect a collection of dour
folk from the East Neuk of Fife
(the Haar is the North Sea fog). Yet while Yorkston's voice can be measured, this record has a Mediterranean warmth in its playful lyrics and lush arrangements, with various folkie friends on harp, mandolin and, apparently, wine glasses. It's one of those enduring, hypnotic albums you can't listen to enough.
ANDRE PAINE

LITTLE JACKIE
The Stoop (S-Curve/Parlophone)
****
Christened in honour of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's Little Jackie Wants To be a Star, New York's Little Jackie are struggling singer-songwriter Imani Coppola and programmer Adam Pallin. Together they've invented a curious hybrid: sunny Motown beats with bells and strings on Guys Like When Girls Kiss, scat singing on Liked You Better Before and a contemporary hip-hop sensibility with deliciously acidic lyrics. Sharp, funny, and certainly the best work of Coppola's wildly variable career. A delightful curveball.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

JAZZ

CHARLES LLOYD
Dream Weaver (Warner Jazz)
****
This charming two-volume anthology captures California's likeable old dreamer in his most influential phase. Though accused of stealing John Coltrane's ballad sound, Lloyd has always been an original. Here he is in those flower-power days making some beautiful music with quartets featuring the embryonic piano genius of Keith Jarrett. He also had a knack for coining evocative song titles. Numbers such as Sombrero Sam, Sunrise/Sunset, Love-In and Voice in the Night have a resonance that outlives their hippie origins.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Big Blue Ball (Real World)
***
Big Blue Ball is the product of three recording weeks in 1991, 1992 and 1995 at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios. There is an audible joy about the music and a sense of openness that somehow makes it hang together, despite an absurd number of artists, including Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger, Natacha Atlas, Papa Wemba, Marta Sebestyen and the late Hukwe Zawose. But when it has been 18 years in the making, you can't help but expect something more, and global collaborations have become much more commonplace these days.
SIMON BROUGHTON