Dirty and fantastic
weapon_h | Scottsdale, AZ USA | 05/21/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"If you're not familiar with Jamie Lidell.....well, shame on you.
"Multiply" was an interesting combination of 1/2 stripped-down, electronic-ish funk & 1/2 Stax soul.
"Jim" was the "pop" album with Stevie Wonder-ish feelings
"Compass" is the unpolished, raw masterpiece of funk and soul.
If you have been waiting 10 years for the new D'Angelo album, buy this.
If you have been mourning the retirement of Lewis Taylor, buy this.
If you fantasize about Prince releasing stuff that actually sounds like Prince, buy this.
"The Ring" is an emotional release of pain embedded in a nasty, tasty funk nugget. If nothing else, download this song.
The rest of the album is amazing save for a couple of tracks - but it's not nearly as accessible as "Jim", like a Lewis Taylor album, you have to let the songs unfold, they may not grab you at :30 or even 1:00, but by the time the song is over, you'll be blown away."
The only compass that I need
Jesse Weinberg | Milwaukee WI | 05/24/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you were trying to compare someone to Jamie Lidell, you may have had a chance until he released this album. Multiply taught us that one track of an album can sound like it came from a different decade than all the rest. Jim taught us that maybe funk and soul aren't so different, and now this album takes us to an entirely different part of Jamie's psyche.
The beats are earth shattering, the hooks are contagious, and the vocals are of another planet. Parts of this sound like Jamie recorded them in his basement and parts sound like production from the latest hip-hop studio in LA. Of course it sounds that way, Beck produced it and everyone knows he can't stay in one genre for a whole album. James Gadson plays drums on a lot of it, and the motown feel is unmistakable. Feist and Chris Taylor offer backing vocals, which hopefully gets some of those indi-hipsters listening to this.
From the toe-tapping, Jackson 5-esque Enough is Enough, to the 808 break on completely exposed, this album keeps you grooving. By the time you get to the ballads like Compass and You See My Light, you will know that this man can sing, write and perform with the versatility of a young Stevie or Michael, and can sing circles around a Justin Timberlake or the other young wannabes cropping up in today's market.
The gritty undertones, distorted vocal sounds, beatboxing and textures on which I can't even put my finger cut right through to the true heart of this album; Singing your heart out about loving and love lost. I'd like to see this album become the sound of the 2010s, so all you indi-hipsters, pay for it rather than waiting for a torrent. We need to fund this man so he can continue on this journey of soul."
Jamie's Mixed Bag
Andre S. Grindle | Brewer Maine | 05/24/2010
(3 out of 5 stars)
"There's no doubt about it-this music is definately the byproduct of a very restless musical personality. My first hearing of Jamie Lidell was on his previous album Jim, a well crafted R&B/funk album that presented Lidell,vocally and musically in a light that really set it all for his talents and within itself was diverse enough to keep things musically very interesting. So you can imagine my surprise these few years later to find Lidell has returned.....as Beck? Not by any means to knock Beck by any means since he has his brilliance Jamie Lidell has a totally different flavor and this album just doesn't keep his own distinct flavors as intact as the previous album. There is a lot of music here that has that strong funk groove of which he's proved more than capable of such as on...say "You Are Walking" and "The Ring". What happens here a lot of the times though is this very 1990's DIY approch that,to be honest was kind of done to death in it's day and whose time on occasion seems to have come to pass. There's a lot of fuzzed out vocals,almost to the point of being blunted and most of these songs possess little to sometimes no craft to them at all. He's trying to do a lot on this record and only on the heavily Minneapolis inspired "I Wanna Be Your Telephone" and the inspired jazz-funk of "Enough Is Enough" does enough of Jamie's own creative light shine through amidst all these overreaching (and sometimes all too obvious) attempts at being eclectic. Lidell's focus is still presented here but the sad part is he's all too often trying to hide it behind a series of studio effects that tend to distract from the songs. In the end it's definately not "pop" music in any sense of the word and is probably better digested whole than by illustrating the merrits of any of it's individual songs. Even though I'm sure many people would disagree his previous album to this worked far better to his writing,singing and musical style and the kind of sonic explorations that work so well for Moby and Beck just don't suit Jamie Lidell. True that may have been the world that spawned him but he expanded and if not properly guided in the future this could be the beginning of a period of Lidell musically treading water."
Track Listings (14) - Disc #1