Audioholic Media

 
It’s hard to know what to make of neo-soul crooner Jamie Lidell. For a British artist/producer with a steep history in electronic dance music, he sure has taken a shine to the thick-freak R&B funk sauce. For any other artist in the industry this kind of sharp left turn might have meant full-on derailment, but as his newest LP, Compass, amply demonstrates, if there’s another artist anything like Jamie Lidell, we haven’t heard ‘em.

Compass
Release Date: May 18th via Warp

01. Completely Exposed
02. Your Sweet Boom
03. She Needs Me
04. I Wanna Be Your Telephone
05. Enough’s Enough
06. The Ring
07. You Are Waking
08. I Can Love Again
09. It’s A Kiss
10. Compass
11. Gypsy Blood
12. Coma Chameleon
13. Big Drift
14. You See My Light

Lidell spent his last two albums (2005′s Multiply and 2008′s Jim) breaking down and breaking away from the art-robotic dance floor sound of Super_Collider (his collab with fellow UK techno-savant Cristian Vogel), and by the time Jim rolled out, he had successfully transformed himself from an electro-club Prince junkie to a legit, souled-out R&B crooner with smooth grooves and roughly-honed vocals in the mix. Perhaps the biggest surprise from the opening notes of “Completely Exposed,” Compass’ lead-off track, is the crazy, fuzzed-up beatbox claps and over-modded drum machine textures. As the album smoothly pumps along, it’s clear the landscape has changed, and Lidell is putting the tricks he learned producing all that experimental techno to use in a whole new way. And in listening to the strangely sensual synth chug of “I Wanna Be Your Telephone,” it is also clear that his Prince jones is back with a big, booty-bouncing thump. Luckily, these are welcome changes, since the production choices are not necessarily new for Jamie Lidell, but rather a logical amalgamation of the sounds he achieved with Super_Collider melded seamlessly onto his new, surprisingly top-shelf modern R&B framework.

Some of this re-innovation is no doubt due to the company the man has been keeping: collaborations in the songwriting department include Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone (out of Wilco), the brilliant Beck, and many more. Supporting players on these tracks include alt.indie chanteuse Leslie Feist, the powerful Nikka Costa, the entire Grizzly Bear crew, and at one point the NYPD even scores a cast credit. And with the diversity on this album, a large and diverse cast is quite needed. Cuts like “Telephone” and “The Ring” bring a luscious low-end groove to the dance floor; album opener “Completely Exposed” and “She Needs Me” wax as full-on baby-making soul, and more edgy numbers like “Big Drift,” the title track and breakneck “You Are Waking” get downright experimental with their production and instrumentation. It makes for a pretty broad palette, but amazingly nothing sounds out of place, and Lidell draws all these obtuse layers in and blends them together with undetectable magic, all the while turning in the strongest vocal performances of his career, expanding his considerable soul chops with visible confidence.

By the time closing track “You See My Light” slowly fades out into the distance, this LP has run a very different landscape than any R&B or soul album you’ve ever heard. It’s experimental neo-soul, which is somewhat unexplored territory, but it’s most amazing because of how well it works. Jamie Lidell has proven on previous efforts that he knows his way around a production booth but can still make a soulful record with complete, unadorned live instrumentation. With nothing from those two camps left to prove, on this album he gets down to the business of art, assembling this puzzle of normally disparate sounds together with a deliberate hand and an assured vision, crafting a musical journey quite unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. You’ll be hard-pressed to find something out there as unique as this LP, and the fact that it works on the dance floor, in the bedroom, and in the mind-expanding indie realm as well makes it all the more difficult to beat. Amazing leap forward for an artist who is no longer afraid of his past, present, or future.

—–

For all of your Compass purchasing needs, visit jamielidell.com.