[listen] Jamie Lidell – “What A Shame”

Nov 15, 2012

The near-fever that’s being run over D’Angelo’s impending return, you might think that soul music isn’t doing anything interesting. Of course, that isn’t even slightly true (THEESatisfaction, Jessie Ware, Bobby Womack’s new album, etc), but Jamie Lidell‘s new track “What A Shame” is an absolutely mental and exciting new hybrid that turns the genre on its head once more. It’s garage, polished and reconfigured for emphatic neo-soul vocals, but it’s not pristine in the slightest; a synth powerful enough to bend steel girders sends the song on a demented dance-floor spiral that’s somewhere between the throes of death and pangs of new life.

Lidell’s new album Jamie Lidell is out February 19th via Warp.

Jamie Lidell – What A Shame (taken from self-titled album 'Jamie Lidell' out Feb 18/19)