CD Review: Jamie Lidell, Jim
Apr 8, 2008 8:42 PM Bill Murphy (Writer)
So-called
"blue-eyed" retro soul has regained lost ground in the past few
years—specifically thanks to the likes of Amy Winehouse and her squeaky-clean
counterpart Joss Stone—and it's no accident that the resurgence is largely a
British phenomenon. Generations of mopheaded English kids have grown up around
northern soul, Brit funk and reggae crooners, so it only makes sense that a
bloke as talented, for example, as Jamie Lidell should have found his inner
Stevie Wonder on 2005's excellent Multiply.
Lidell is at it again on Jim, and while the jury is still out on
whether he'll ever touch the darker—and more exciting—depths he reached with
Super Collider (his weirdly engaging glam-tech duo with Cristian Vogel) or even
on such Multiply moments as
"When I Come Back Around," he still delivers on standouts like
"Green Light" (conjuring Fresh-era Sly Stone) and
"Hurricane" (an uptempo acid-funk ode to the Isley Brothers).
"Figured Me Out" gets a little too Jamiroquai-cute, but even Lidell's
weaker cuts shine with stellar production values that place you smack in the
middle of the time he dials in, be it late '60s Memphis or mid-'80s L.A.
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