JIM

When Jamie Lidell’s last record elevated him from avant-garde knob-twiddler to sweet soul crooner, some wondered if the record was some kind of ironic practical joke. Certainly, 2005’s Multiply was the first Warp release to sound vaguely like Jamiroquai. Ultimately the only one laughing was Lidell himself, as his street-cred granted an army of closet R&B lovers licence to indulge in the record’s guilt-free pop pleasure.
On JIM, Lidell endeavours to once more showcase his knack for constructing solid retro-soul tunes and uncanny impersonations of Stevie, Marvin, and Otis. The album is book-ended by two fantastic songs: vibrant gospel opener ‘Another Day’ and the tender, deftly executed closing number ‘Rope Of Sand’ – both of which evoke Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece Innervisions.
‘Figured Out’ however, proves the Jamiroquai comparison was no exaggeration. You get the impression that if half these tracks arrived in a sleeve with a touched-up Ferrari logo, it’d be sneered at all the way to the bottom shelf at Tesco. More troubling is the LP's lack of nuance. The arrangements, the lyrics and the voice are all so self-consciously pure – they belong entirely to another era, when sincerity seemed that bit more...well, sincere.
“I haven’t tried to hide the influences,” Lidell claims on the record’s press release, “This is the music I love.” The problem here, though, is that he’s bringing little else to the party. Apart from an ultra-hip record label, that is.

Key Track: ‘Another Day’