Latest CD releases reviewed

JAMIE LIDELL
Multiply Warp
****

Anyone expecting Jamie Lidell to continue the leftfield, experimental bent which has served him well to date with Super_Collider may well wonder if they have put the wrong CD on. Multiply is Lidell as Prince, an album as deeply soulful and wildly funky as anything you'll find from the heydays of the Stax or Hi labels, when they were still in the business of showboating new music. Live, Lidell is more than capable of carrying off such a star turn, but this record is still a revelation. The title track could well be Al Green shuffling and sliding to the microphone, while When I Come Back Around has soulful ghosts buried deep amid the coils and cogs of the machines before Lidell takes a Thriller-like digital boogie out the back door. You'll be grooving to this one all summer long and beyond. www.warprecords.com

Jim Carroll