Sometimes it's possible to make the beat part of the overall flow, as on those Gas albums, but there aren't so many artists who can pull that off. Your typical drum machine beat is too distinct, calls too much attention to itself. Ambient is about sounds bleeding to each other, continuous flows, non-discrete pulses. For example, albums with any emphasis on beats rarely feel like proper ambient to me. I used to be more liberal about these things when I was younger, but the more I listen to ambient, the more I feel that for it to exist as a thing in itself, it can't be just 'music to chill out to'. obviously i've come around but immediate appeal is something strikingly lacking from post-'smile' beach boys. you think i knew what to do with a fucking brilliant song like 'i'm so glad', let alone their putting a _cover_ on an lp in '67? hell no. god knows when i got into the beach boys i was looking for Big Statements like 'pet sounds' and 'smile'. they're short albums, they come off as unambitious, spookily skeletal, not making A Statement. even 'wild honey', which is a really solid and consistent album, is very much an album out of its time and off-kilter in a much more off-putting way than 'magical mystery tour'. I agree about weird/creepy being an essential part of the beach boys aesthetic! but i don't agree that it's an aesthetic everyone can be expected to enjoy. I'm sure even casual BB fans have listened to and enjoyed other albs that aren't flawless from soup to nuts and besides, weird/creepy is a pretty essential part of the overall BB aesthetic imho. Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower and Surf's Up are all extremely enjoyable albums with, at worst, one or two subpar tracks that I don't think would seriously ruin anyone's overall enjoyment of them.

Peter brotzmann scaruffi