When guitar players, DJs, and other predominantly non-vocal artists open up their mouths and start singing, there are a lot of things that can happen. Good things, bad things, funny things, boring things. It’s a pretty mixed bag. For every producer who can rap *and* control the Maestro, there are a dozen who, well… can’t. Which is why Multiply, the new album from electronic musician Jamie Lidell is such a pleasant surprise. Lidell has vocalized on tracks before, but this album marks the first time that his vocals are not pitch-shifted, digitally processed or otherwise distorted. Instead, he’s created a straight-up soul record in the style of Al Green, James Carr and Marvin Gaye. (Not to mention the killer Prince / Michael Jackson funk he lays down on “When I Come Back Around. Seriously… If MJ had managed to put this kind of stuff on his last album, he’d be having no problem selling records). And sure, maybe it borrows pretty damn heavily from all these artists, but it’s hardly just a pastiche of random styles. Look underneath the vocals and you’ll find the same attention to drum and bassline programming you’d expect to find on any Warp record.
And that brings me to another thing I wanted to highlight about this album. I picked up the whole thing for $9.99 from Warp’s online store, Bleep. That’s what I’d pay on iTunes as well, I realize, but what’s cool about the way Warp handles online purchases. First of all, you can preview the entire album through a Flash applet before you buy it. (The player will only let you hear 20 seconds of audio at a time, but you can drag the play head around and choose which 20 seconds you want to hear from each track). Then, when you decide to go ahead and pay for the purchase, they just let you download high-quality, unprotected MP3 files. I’ll share one here, just so you can see what I’m talking about:
Try doing that with a M4P file! And while it may violate the letter of the law to post a copyrighted track like that, I have a feeling that it may just help Warp sell a few more copies of the album, because I know that antinomian.com readers enjoy the funk, and don’t mind paying for it =) (Oh and while I’m on the subject of Bleep, have you heard the bad-ass cover of Magnetic Fields’ “Take Ecstasy With Me” that !!! put out on Warp earlier this year? Great track, even greater cover artwork. Quality package, all around! =)
