Recorded in a converted flour mill on the River Clyde (although it may as well have been the Ganges), Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea -- by Glaswegian and ex-Soup Dragons bassist Sushil K. Dade -- has done something very new and very old. What Dade has done is collate traditional Indian styles with surf, folk, and neo-'60s pop, creating a mellifluous quilt of beatific sound. In the process, he has assembled a who's who of the Scottish indie scene, with members of Teenage Fan Club, The Pastels, The Delgados, Bill Wells and Belle and Sebastian, along with students from his driving school.

It is this kind of egalitarian approach to the music-making process, both in the borrowing of styles and in the selection of musicians, that makes this record so fresh and innovative. Reverb-heavy electric guitars pick out ragas, the piano trades chords with a hammond organ and the violin accents the nylon-string guitar which gives way to the electric harp, while a chorus of singers blithely give voice to lyrics in Hindi and English. That's just a thumbnail sketch; the songs themselves also defy conventional standards of arrangement. They have the feeling of a spiritual, in which the vocals are an instrument rather than a narrative focus. Never is this more evident than on the lovely "Om Namah Shivaya" (translated: I bow to Shiva), which features Stuart Murdoch's wonderfully distinctive voice singing in Hindi amid a ten minute-long swirl of violin, hammered dulcimer and saxophone. It's so lovely that you could almost listen to it forever. The ethos is making music for music's sake.

Tiny Waves, Mighty Sea will make you shake your head to the hippie-rock of "Beat of a Drum" and the chanting "Witchi Tai To", as well as sway your head to the hypnotic "Shree Ram, Jai Ram" and the unforgivingly gorgeous "Ananda is the Ocean". In an album brimming with melody, it is no surprise that viscerally touching instrumentals such as "Maid of the Loch", and the Velvet spellcasting of "Radhika", deftly come and go as they please. In true Joycean fashion, Dade has his wife Vinita close the album with the hymn-like, a capella vocal of "Prayer for Ananda". Like the other tracks, it's beautiful. You'll find yourself entranced by snake-charmer Dade's masterpiece for years to come.