Forget about bird flu, Jamie Lidell seems to have caught something stranger and more exotic. I not sure where he has been wandering lately, but some kind of retro virus has infected his blood. The poster boy of future funk has gone all '70s soul on us. This is a major surprise.
Lidell's previous work in Super Collider and his own solo output has pursued a harsh modernist agenda. He has taken soul music and shattered it into 100,000 tiny fragments that he has then reassembled in increasing avant-garde shapes. There are no traces of the glitch ascetic here, no sign of the kind of precision beat surgery that has previous been his forte.
No, this title track from his recent LP is a glorious throw back to the early '70s. What marks this out above something as spineless as Paul Young or Steve Brookstein is the clarity of his voice and the strength of his song writing. Sure, it covers some well travelled ground but it can stand shoulder to shoulder next to the likes of the Four Tops or the Temptations. This really soars on angel wings. It gives me the sweetest feeling.
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