The kind of extrovert flakery and dandyism displayed by Johnny is not mirrored in the album's character or aesthetic. If Johnny is the hot neon bloom, then band members Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn are emotionally-attached wallflowers, quietly mourning his departure in song. A gently flowery psych-folk throwback, this is the kind of album that evokes a hazy pastoral quilt of '60s references, a deeply conservative palette of Brit-invasion jangle, alternate current country, and loose-and-dirty-shirted sunshine folk.

The Skygreen Leopards have been recording for a number of years now, notching up 10 albums and EPs since their formation as a two-piece in 2001. San Francisco has always been the band's home and the Californian soft-wire jangle is very much in evidence, subtler than The Dodos and less wilfully experimental than Vetiver, more rambling and uncleansed than both, still they traverse similar terrain.

Their earlier work relied heavily on forestry field recordings, and a myth circulated that they recorded outside to naturally derive their chicada-and-woodworm ambience. But much of their recording life has been spent in the studio of Jason Quever, he of fellow San Francisco folkers The Papercuts, who is drafted in on this album to provide lusty and fulsome organ work.

There's a certain Elephant 6 ramble-psych here, hit-and-miss strumming, the free and busty of fellow San Fransciscans Beulah - a sound that conceivably would have been of more interest were it released on that label a decade ago. This is chocolate box retro, faithful and nostalgic.

Crosby, Stills & Nash, their California vocal harmonic juggernaut watered down to detuned Pavementisms, '70s Rod Stewart appearing in a Maggie May vocal break, The Kinks chirruping chord changes and analog glitter - none of these make for a compelling musical statement, all rooted in a benign past. But they are well-executed, the production ebbs and dives with understated textural skill, the wavering out-of-tune vocal performance is Neil Young or Silver Jews-esque with its ability to make deliberate avoidance of the natural notes.

The '60s is a pulped decade. The machinations of historical revisionism have folded back upon themselves; cancel and cancel again, negating the negation in interminable revisits of revisits. Hippy capital, neo-commons, chemical emancipation - in subsequent decades everything would have their turn again, and better. The decade is beyond sepia now, it has both darkened like a poorly-kept painting, and bleached into a blinding white by an over-exuberant photo processor.

But still there are records, and this is one of them, which reaffirm the decade as a white-folk's secular spiritual repository, which produce some version of freedom, a joyous disappearance dredged from remaining archetypes. When you mix freedom with the untarnished sheen of nostalgia it can never be squalid or difficult like the potentially difficult contemporary realities.

Myth creation is easier when you tap the obvious. And indeed, being aware of the processes of myth creation is a lesson which Johnny imparts, as his creators tell us: "We recorded the record and we were like, 'Oh, this kinda seems like it's about some guy, who just seems to be a thread through it.' He was greeted in that way. So, afterwards we created that myth." If only they had sought more interesting myths in their music.

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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees