Count the list of contributors, multiply by ten and reflect for a moment on the number of fingers that wove the colours in this marvellous tapestry. Add in the feet and toes that marked the heartbeat of this music and the breath that sung these songs.

However great that number, it pales into insignificance alongside the countless hearts, minds and spirits that have urged and willed and dreamed and waited across fifteen years for this album to appear. Unnumbered and immeasurable, you know who you are.

Let's cut to the chase. 'Unfairground' is good - very, very, very good. Good because it's so familiar and good because it's so different.

Kevin Ayers from A to Z in fact.

Locked within these ten songs is the gossamer thread that joins the world of dreams with the edges of reality; the ecstasies of love with the darkness of rejection; the regret of missed opportunities with the terror of an unknown future. The metaphor of the unfairground underpins a poignant tension for an artist whose genius cannot be reconciled with the acclaim it deserves.

After a false dawn or two, and a smattering of politics, these songs started to assume their present shape in the latter half of 2005 when Kevin sought out the welcoming arms of Brooklyn, New York based band The Ladybug Transistor. Long-time and ardent admirers, Kevin and the Ladybugs had already collaborated on a cover of 'Puis-Je' for the 1999 (and very excellent) French language compilation 'Pop Romantique'. After rehearsals in New York, a stopover in WaveLab studios, Tucson, Arizona laid down the core of the album. The 'musician-ology' gets complicated ( I've unpicked some of the USA and UK connections at the end of this piece, though they stand some correction) but Ladybug's Gary Olson tapped heavily into the Elephant Six network of friends to bring along string players, arranger Joe McGinty and brass players from Australian indie collective Architecture in Helsinki.

The following eighteen months seem to have added contributions from Hugh Hopper, Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, a sampled Robert Wyatt and gorgeous Bridget St John before final tweaks, flourishes, bells and whistles from a Glaswegian collective of members of Teenage Fanclub, jazz bassist Bill Wells and Euros Childs (definitely Welsh, ex Gorky's Zygotic Mynci). Peter Henderson - Paul McCartney's engineer - came on board to do the final mix.

What strikes you immediately is the richness and sophistication of a musical texture that cradles and uplifts Kevin's voice as though he were standing half-submerged in velvet. The Albemarle sound of the Ladybugs is unmistakeable and of course you can pick out Bridget and Wyatt where they occur but elsewhere, the musicians melt together to support these songs with an almost unique cohesion. We have become so tuned to categorising Kevin's songs and albums, not only by lyric or melody, but by the reference points of the magical guitarists - Oldfield, Hillage, Ollie, Summers, Bowry, Berthe. Unfairground challenges that comfortable understanding and - this is clearly a personal response - made me hear the lyrics with a greater immediacy and clarity than ever before and later, on subsequent listenings, focused my senses on the underlying complexity and artifice of the arrangements.

This is a Kevin Ayers record that you cannot half-listen to - it captivates you.

Although comparisons are always subjective, the gestation and birth of this record took my thoughts back to Joy Of A Toy. Think about it - Kevin in 1969 with a bunch of songs, in retreat but in control, without a band, certainly without a lead guitarist, turning to a mixture of friends, friends of friends and new acquaintances like classical arranger David Bedford. And producing a classic. Are these recurring steps in the grand dance of our lives?

'Cold Shoulder' will stand from Sept 10th 2007 as one of the best songs Kevin has ever written. Time-shifted far beyond the jocular flippancy of 'too old to die young', a wiser man contemplates age with an air of resignation. Yet, tragically, his wisdom only seems to have made him understand how far he's been left behind. The choruses work beautifully as shortened haikus and, more chillingly than I've ever heard before, the shift from 'nothing left to dream on ' to 'nothing left to lean on' juxtaposes the utter sense of both physical and metaphysical abandonment. It is a short and perfect lyric that glimpses within the darkest and deepest privacy of our human condition to the truth that awaits us all.

In contrast, 'Wide Awake' sees Kevin at his most exultant and joyous. A simple presence transforms the darkest and bleakest of nights into a golden dawn. Only two people will ever know who 'she' is yet the song is universal - these are the sunrises we all treasure. Thematically, the song transports us right back to the 'May I?' girl in that small café and far beyond in time to when love first started to make sweet music.

Will others sense an almost perfect lineage between the songs of Unfairground and the proven timelessness of so much of Kevin's music?

Which brings us to the next step.

Sleeping or wide awake? Shine a light or turn them off?

This release can either be an end in itself or a new chapter. Only one person will decide and that is absolutely right. I do hope that Kevin's self-belief lets him know just how good these songs are and that the positive reviews and very public displays of respect for him are more than just media talk. We're all too old and intelligent to be flattered without substance. The media angle that Kevin has somehow been 'lost' for the past fifteen years and now 'rediscovered' is bemusing - those fifteen years have contained a lot of issues but a lot of hard work. All 'the media' had to do was look - and look in the right direction. But for the moment, they are looking and they are dancing to Kevin's tune, not vice versa. This is a longer discussion for another time but Kevin - in spite of the self-effacement - is masterful about his own music, a consummate technician and perfectionist. Whether acoustic, solo or with a band, Kevin's songs have always been dynamic and your imagination, like mine, will already have turned the lights down low and started to hear these on stage.

Dear Kevin, please seize the moment.

Footnote. I posted these words at one minute past midnight, just as release day of 10/09/07 arrived. I'd enjoyed listening to this record so much and discovering its surprises that I didn't want to deny anybody else the sheer pleasure of experiencing it too. So these are personal thoughts rather than a preview which can sometimes be intrusive.

For the same reason, I've only wittered on about a couple of the songs and hope people will let us know of their own favourites and why. It's always your own opinions that count.

If you understand, beyond the music, only silence is needed.

USA Sessions

Glasgow Sessions

Individuals (Location of recording unknown)

Contribution uncertain

* drummer San Fadyl sadly passed away April 25 2007 following an asthma attack