by SCOTT C

It would be fair to say that Jamie Lidell has the kind of singing voice that could make hardened criminals stop and ponder their direction in life, or get you laid when the odds are certainly not in your favour.

After surprising everyone with the warm and soulful tones of Multiply on Warp Records in 2005, this Englishman living in Berlin has finally let his voice shine through. He’s part of a collaborative group of friends living in Berlin, which includes Canadians Mocky and Chilly Gonzales, and also shares a special friendship with Matthew Herbert and a creative love for pushing things that often finds them in bed together artistically.

Lidell has taken his outlandish live show to all four corners of the globe, beatboxing a barrage of self-sampled vocal loops and mixing that angelic voice with improvised electronica. It’s no small feat to channel Al Green, Prince and Herbert all in the same night, but Lidell makes it look so easy it’s maddening. The Mirror spoke to him over the phone from a hotel in Santa Cruz, California, in anticipation of his show during the Montreal Jazz Festival’s midnight electronica series.

Mirror: So I hear you’re in Santa Cruz, living the high life!

Jamie Lidell: Yeah! We’ve managed to wangle a rather fancy hotel right on the sea front, so yeah, it’s time for the high life, man. Sipping margaritas while flipping through the thousandth edition of Rolling Stone, doing a bit of manicure work—y’know, that kinda shit.

M: Are you the surfing type?

JL: Absolutely, mate! Longboard, though.

M: For some reason I’m having a hard time seeing you on the beach at all.

JL: (laughs) Well, if only you could see me now. I’m bloody close to the beach, let’s put it that way. I don’t mind the beach, but I’m not a huge beach man. I’m half Scottish you know, and we’ve got kind of like corned-beef skin.

M: So you’re talking SPF 55?

JL: I have to put on actual zinc to go in the sun—not the cream shit but actual plate armour. I must say, though, I am happy to see the sun. It’s been grim. I’ve literally been carrying around the old grey cloud with me for the last three months.

M: Really?

JL: Yeah, man. Not metaphorically speaking, but I mean literally. It’s just been one long, grey day, basically. Some of my best friends are grey, but I don’t want to carry it all around with me, do I? I’m an Englishman, so I’m constantly trying to escape the grey, leave it behind. But enough of this pathetic rambling on my part. How are you? Is the sun out in Montreal?

M: As a matter of fact, yes! We’re experiencing the first real heat of the summer this very week.

JL: Ah, yes. See? Well, enjoy her. She’ll show you a little glimpse of her ass, then she’ll be on her way.

M: Yes, indeed. I couldn’t have said it better myself. You, Jamie, have the great honour of being a part of my first shirtless interview of the year.

JL: Fantastic!

Ditching the glitches

M: Multiply is such a rich, warm and uplifting record compared to some of the more glitchy stuff you’ve done with previous solo outings and Super_Collider. How did this positivity come to shine through?

JL: I consider myself a positive person, very much so, except when the habitual pessimist rears its ugly head, and I get thrown into a strange cycle of self-loathing. Multiply isn’t really about positivity, it’s just that I wanted to do a song-based record with my voice as the star.

M: It’s funny to think about the people who’ll discover your latest album and decide to invest in the Jamie Lidell catalogue, only to find that much of your previously recorded material sounds nothing like Multiply.

JL: Like I said, it’s just something I had to do. My voice had always sort of existed in the background of much of the music I had been doing, and I wanted to put the spotlight on the instrument closest to my heart.

M: I want to talk to you about the importance of experimentation in both your production and your live show, because this is clearly something that you hold in high regard. How important is experimentation in what you do?

JL: What’s the alternative? One man’s experimentation is another man’s normality, I guess. Communication is the ultimate goal, I think—call me old-fashioned. You can experiment with language, for example, after you’ve had a few ales, to the point where you become a little too liberal with your speech, and no one can understand what you’re talking about. That happens, and I’ve done it many times. I’m not proud, and I do carry meds. I’m happy to push the boat out, but part of the joy of being 32, and of being an elder statesman of the musical game, is that I know where my boundaries are, I guess. I can take great pleasure in full experimentation, but there’s only so much that I will make public nowadays.

Caped crusader

M: I made a point of heading down to Toronto, back in April, to see you play at Lee’s Palace. While I had read about your live show and your propensity for seeming like you’re all alone in a room making music, I was really blown away by the improvised monster reconstruction of some of the sweeter songs from Multiply.

JL: It’s like when I’ve got the blueprint of a given song, it’s not enough to perform it the same way every time. I like to surprise myself as well as the audience sometimes, while keeping the blueprint and the essence of the song in the mix.

M: You’ve developed a reputation for sporting crazy, theatrical outfits during your live shows, so I was a little disappointed when you came out sporting a London Fog overcoat in Toronto.

JL: Of course, the people will call me the crazy man, coming with his golden capes, jesting and frolicking around the place, but there comes a time when a man needs a trenchcoat and a monocle. There comes a time when a man needs sturdy pinstripes and an upstanding starched collar. The costumes must come to an end. There will be gold, and there will be silver, but never the two shall meet.

M: I’ve done a lot of grumbling in the past about performers who tool their entire live show around a laptop and some vocal accompaniment, but everyone in that room stopped breathing when you sat down and sang “This Time” with only the backing track from the computer. The power and soul of your voice is something that carries a lot of emotion and clarity, but when did you realize that your voice was something that other people needed to hear?

JL: I suppose when I first sang as a choirboy, and I had the parish vicar looking at me and stroking his leg in that way, and I knew it was the right thing.

M: [laughs] You were a choirboy?

JL: I certainly was, and still am today.

M: As an Englishman who lives and works in Berlin, it must be a little surreal to be touring in the states right now.

JL: I’ve got a special kind of visa that I’ve used five or six times to come in and out of this crazy land this year. I’m obviously lesser known as an entity in America, but I’m a megastar in Europe (laughs), so I’m missing the red carpets, the beautiful, cynical ladies waiting for me backstage and the champagne. America is like a pair of fresh underpants. I’ve not yet soiled them, and they feel good to the skin, and they give you that optimistic smile.

With Vincent Lemieux at Club Soda
on Friday, July 7, 12 a.m., $22.50

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