Compass

Jamie Lidell | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 18, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Warp Records
• ASIN: B003AVAJES
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,803 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Jamie Lidell is a genuinely restless soul. He broke out of small-town England and has been a nomad ever since. His constant desire to progress leaping and stumbling towards new discoveries has defined his musical journey so far; and there's no sign of it fading away. Recorded in Los Angeles, New York and Canada Compass is his most eclectic album yet. Songs shift, chop, change and mutate genres and forms before our very ears. It's got funk in spades; the jaw-dropping power of the vocals is stronger than ever; it rocks, it pops, it's sweet, angry, hard, soulful and soft, often within the span of a single track. It's the restless album that finally matches the soul of its creator.Jamie's fellow travelers on Compassinclude Beck, Feist, Gonzales, Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear and Pat Sansone of Wilco. Musically and lyrically this is very much A Jamie Lidell Production reflecting not only his exhilarating, diverse tastes, but also a year of change, love, longing and arrival at a new place. When he takes to the road in 2010, he'll be bringing a band again, but stripping it back; keeping it lean. For both newcomers and initiates, this will be an experience. And no, he won't stop.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars dirty and fantastic, May 20, 2010

By 

weapon_h "weapon_h" (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Compass (Audio CD)

If you're not familiar with Jamie Lidell.....well, shame on you.

"Multiply" was an interesting combination of 1/2 stripped-down, electronic-ish funk & 1/2 Stax soul.
"Jim" was the "pop" album with Stevie Wonder-ish feelings
"Compass" is the unpolished, raw masterpiece of funk and soul.

If you have been waiting 10 years for the new D'Angelo album, buy this.
If you have been mourning the retirement of Lewis Taylor, buy this.
If you fantasize about Prince releasing stuff that actually sounds like Prince, buy this.

"The Ring" is an emotional release of pain embedded in a nasty, tasty funk nugget. If nothing else, download this song.

The rest of the album is amazing save for a couple of tracks - but it's not nearly as accessible as "Jim", like a Lewis Taylor album, you have to let the songs unfold, they may not grab you at :30 or even 1:00, but by the time the song is over, you'll be blown away.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Jamie's Mixed Bag, May 23, 2010

By 

Andre S. Grindle "Andre' Grindle" (Brewer Maine) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Compass (Audio CD)

There's no doubt about it-this music is definately the byproduct of a very restless musical personality. My first hearing of Jamie Lidell was on his previous album Jim, a well crafted R&B/funk album that presented Lidell,vocally and musically in a light that really set it all for his talents and within itself was diverse enough to keep things musically very interesting. So you can imagine my surprise these few years later to find Lidell has returned.....as Beck? Not by any means to knock Beck by any means since he has his brilliance Jamie Lidell has a totally different flavor and this album just doesn't keep his own distinct flavors as intact as the previous album. There is a lot of music here that has that strong funk groove of which he's proved more than capable of such as on...say "You Are Walking" and "The Ring". What happens here a lot of the times though is this very 1990's DIY approch that,to be honest was kind of done to death in it's day and whose time on occasion seems to have come to pass. There's a lot of fuzzed out vocals,almost to the point of being blunted and most of these songs possess little to sometimes no craft to them at all. He's trying to do a lot on this record and only on the heavily Minneapolis inspired "I Wanna Be Your Telephone" and the inspired jazz-funk of "Enough Is Enough" does enough of Jamie's own creative light shine through amidst all these overreaching (and sometimes all too obvious) attempts at being eclectic. Lidell's focus is still presented here but the sad part is he's all too often trying to hide it behind a series of studio effects that tend to distract from the songs. In the end it's definately not "pop" music in any sense of the word and is probably better digested whole than by illustrating the merrits of any of it's individual songs. Even though I'm sure many people would disagree his previous album to this worked far better to his writing,singing and musical style and the kind of sonic explorations that work so well for Moby and Beck just don't suit Jamie Lidell. True that may have been the world that spawned him but he expanded and if not properly guided in the future this could be the beginning of a period of Lidell musically treading water.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only compass that I need, May 24, 2010

By 

Jesse Weinberg (Milwaukee WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Compass (MP3 Download)

If you were trying to compare someone to Jamie Lidell, you may have had a chance until he released this album. Multiply taught us that one track of an album can sound like it came from a different decade than all the rest. Jim taught us that maybe funk and soul aren't so different, and now this album takes us to an entirely different part of Jamie's psyche.

The beats are earth shattering, the hooks are contagious, and the vocals are of another planet. Parts of this sound like Jamie recorded them in his basement and parts sound like production from the latest hip-hop studio in LA. Of course it sounds that way, Beck produced it and everyone knows he can't stay in one genre for a whole album. James Gadson plays drums on a lot of it, and the motown feel is unmistakable. Feist and Chris Taylor offer backing vocals, which hopefully gets some of those indi-hipsters listening to this.

From the toe-tapping, Jackson 5-esque Enough is Enough, to the 808 break on completely exposed, this album keeps you grooving. By the time you get to the ballads like Compass and You See My Light, you will know that this man can sing, write and perform with the versatility of a young Stevie or Michael, and can sing circles around a Justin Timberlake or the other young wannabes cropping up in today's market.

The gritty undertones, distorted vocal sounds, beatboxing and textures on which I can't even put my finger cut right through to the true heart of this album; Singing your heart out about loving and love lost. I'd like to see this album become the sound of the 2010s, so all you indi-hipsters, pay for it rather than waiting for a torrent. We need to fund this man so he can continue on this journey of soul.