JAMIE LIDELL - Multiply

You've probably already heard him somewhere without knowing it. Jamie Lidell, in fact, is best known for being (having been?) the voice of Super Collider, the dynamic duo formed with Cristian Vogel, which combined his soul attitude with the refined, sophisticated beats of the Anglo-Chilean musician.

He also debuted as a solo artist with "Muddlin Gear", an almost glitch, largely instrumental record, an album that caught pretty much everyone off guard.

He also worked as a vocalist for the Matthew Herbert Big Band, lending his voice to two tracks on "Goodbye Swingtime", including the delightful "Everything's Changed".

Touring the world, he then made a name for himself with his voice-only live sets. He did it all himself: recording in human beatbox mode or sampling short vocal snippets to then reimprovise over them or follow loose outlines. You could catch him both solo and at the London Sinfonietta's Warp nights.

With the new album, Lidell, surprising everyone once again, indulges in a revivalist operation in the style of Prince's "Parade". But while on his 1986 release the Minneapolis prince had focused on vintage rhythm'n'blues and his own personal take on French chanson, Lidell devotes himself above all to the soul of the 60s and 70s. He digs up and recreates the golden-era Stevie Wonder, going as far back as the Platters or Frank Sinatra-style blue-eyed soul, while also passing through Prince (who over these twenty years has become just as much of a standards-machine as the other names mentioned) without forgetting that we're still in 2005. "Multiply", in fact, doesn't sound like an old or dated record. The sounds say so, as does a production firmly planted in our own time, shimmering yet anything but overly polished.

Serving as a link between his previous work and this new album is "The City", a track already familiar to anyone who bought "WarpVisions", the Warp video DVD that showed its clip as a preview. It's only here, in fact, that we find the filthy, third-millennium soul that Lidell had sketched out across the two Super Collider albums and, above all, in that masterpiece of a song "Daddy's Car", the gem of his solo debut. "The City", in fact, is a kind of unsettling (anti-)urban blues, complete with a motorik bass line lifted straight from John Paul Jones's "The Sporting Life", accompanying a nervous, paranoid vocal performance.

For the rest, as already mentioned, it's a joyous revival, one that works above all thanks to his knack for nailing great melodies and killer choruses. That's the case with the single "When I Come Back Around", which opens with an intro more Prince than Prince himself and a pure, Stevie Wonder-style roar of a vocal, before dropping into sounds unmistakably of the twenty-first century. All while keeping an atmosphere suspended between the late 70s and 80s Minneapolis (just listen to that keyboard solo to believe it).

The title track's lovely bridge allows itself, on the mention of “people on the moon”, a spaceship-like sound reminiscent of N*E*R*D's “She Wants To Move”: a sign that similar inspirations stem from similar sources?

Worth noting is also the bittersweet optimism of “What’s The Use?”, while the swinging “Music Will Not Last” takes us straight to an American high school end-of-year dance in 1960.

It closes with the beguiling “Game For Fools”. Still thinking about that end-of-year dance from the paragraph above? Well, this is the slow song that seduces. If you don't let the lyrics' doubts get to you, you might just try kissing your lady.

Before wrapping up, though, let's be clear: this “Multiply” is the kind of record that some will adore and others will despise with every fiber of their being, yet it has everything it takes to break through. Everything, that is, except crowd-pleasing videos, a frontman with a strong image, and aggressive promotion. That's why it will only reach the usual small audience. At the very least, give it a listen.

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17/07/2015