Captain Spaulding wrote:Hey, Profiley, you really like this thread, don´t you?
As for your question regarding the Jamie Lidell album, I got it thanks to this very thread, and right now I think it was the definite answer to what I questioned in the first post. Now it´s a matter of finding out if he can live up to the promise of his debut.
Just re-reading this (a lot of old material being dredged up at the moment, perhaps it's something to do with seasonal nostalgia), and this ties neatly in with something I was thinking the other day - I'd asked the same question as TRP of myself, and noticed that Multiply was conspicuously absent from most people's end of year lists, mine aside. Personally I think the album has a lot of staying power - the songwriting's strong enough for it to register as a straightforward soul album, but his creative ambition raises it to another level entirely - The City, one of the most astonishing songs of the year, is a brilliant example of the way that in the modern world music can be changed and twisted to the artist's will; the slightly unnerving funk bassline and Lidell's sneering croon are the only constants while he throws more or less everything in his armoury into the track, and it results in a brilliantly nightmarish, exhausting journey. But perhaps most people weren't expecting something like that - he'd been built up as "the saviour of white soul", or whatever it was the poster quotes said, and with parts of the album being totally bizarre and off the wall, maybe it's understandable that a lot of people didn't really get as much out of it as they expected. Having been a fan for quite a while, I was expecting - hoping, really - that it was more than just a simple R&B affair so the presence of The City and the use of electronics throughout pleased me.
Having said this, the R&B thing is an avenue I don't think he'll pursue for much longer. Multiply is a world away from his debut, which was almost unlistenable computerised insanity, ranging from skittery, off-kilter beats to droning noise workouts, and when I saw him live recently his set merged the two styles, the vocal lines from Multiply juxtaposed with more experimental beats reminiscent of his days in Super_Collider. He's clearly a hugely talented singer and songwriter, but there's a sense that he's too restlessly creative to find himself a real niche - he could end up being regarded as a genre-hopping cult oddity, rather than seizing an opportunity like the one Multiply provided. And while I'd personally prefer the former, I'm guessing there's a lot of people who enjoyed Multiply who'd be more than happy for him to do the latter.
That´s what happens when one resurrects a thread without checking the last posts on it.