Like most of the Myspace generation, I knew nothing of The Beach Boys except what I had gotten through sublimation through their amazingly bad beach movies and songs on oldies radio. For the longest time this didn’t bother me, but one day I grew curious. It might have been because I heard an interview with of Montreal front man, Kevin Barnes or just a realization that I had always known of this band and never really given them a listen before. When I finally got albums recommended by some of my more musicy friends I was quite surprised by how psychedelic and bizarre this beach music really is.

SMiLE was an album to be released in 1968 which had a great deal of hype surrounding it. It was supposed to be the greatest pop album ever conceived, proported grandeur probably coming from it’s fathers, Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks who worked together writing many tunes in Wilson’s in house sandbox. The concept: A teenage symphony to God.

The album never came out for a number of reasons, Wilson’s heavy drug use and mental illness being at the forefront. During the recording of the song, “Fire”, Wilson had the band wear fire fighter hats and halted further sessions suspecting that the song had caused several fires near the studio. The album has become the stuff of legend amongst Beach Boys fans.

So, suffisive to say the crowd was quite stunned when Brian Wilson played the entire album at a performance in 2004. A studio version was later released. This version was my first experience with it (and it is quite an experience!), but that is not the one that I was listening to on Thursday in my dimly lit room whilst doing thai-chi. I admit it was an odd listening tactic, but the material lends itself to surrendering the body to its heavenly rays. The album is a reconstruction of the original Beach Boys recordings from 1966/67 done by a fan with the alias of Purple Chick.

Based off of the newer arrangements (and maybe some old tracklistings) it’s a pretty intense trip. It was really evident at some points where Kevin Barnes got some ideas for tracks on of Montreal’s Coquelicot Alseep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse. What I really like about this version is the dual versions of vega-tables one of which Paul McCartney can be heard eating carrots on and also the wonderfully lush sound of old studio equipment handling insanely cool harmonies.

At 67 minutes it’s 20 minutes more than the new official release and probably a tad too much, but it still has it’s charm.

A FLAC download is available here and 160 kbps mp3 here.

You can find Brian Wilson’s SMiLE in stores.