The [Christian] World may already be preparing for all the colorful festivities of Christmas as of late, but it looks like Warp intend to keep that same flurry of emotion and excite going well past the mark of the new year. Jamie Lidell is set to unleash his self-titled follow-up to 2010's 'Compass' and it sees the Englishman return to full-on head-swirling delicacies with the album's first release 'What A Shame'...and by God is this the track to liven up any Christmas shopping anxiety or New Year's hang-over likewise, you might be feeling.
Laced in a coating of noise pop and contemporary soul, Lidell's vocals punch and parry from all corners of the track. Helped on by a rumbustious helping of colourful synthesizers and throbbing beats, Lidell acts like a man on fire (quite literally) but presents in his vocals a kind of chemical combustion in confidence and chaos. 'Gunna stop the conversation/Though I'm a king of hesitation.' The way the song glitches and breaks between bars - electronics colliding with the spark of percussion and drum hits - creates some tense but surely danceable sounds and the split feeling between euphoric and empathetic are felt ever more when Lidell pulls the rug from off our feet amidst the choruses, and we're sent plummeting into the track's open gorge of mud-squelching bass and escalatory drumbeats.
So much colour and liveliness for a track that doesn't necessarily waver too much from its glitchy break-beat aesthetics, and yet the man's mannerism and sense for execution pays off with little hesitance for questioning. Whether the album can keep us as enthralled and as energized as this, well...I guess we'll JUST HAVE TO WAAAAIIIIT - Jamie Lidell's self-titled record drops in the UK February 18th and a day later in the US.
