Lidell Press Quotes

June 24, 2005

Jamie Lidell press quotes
but by far the most exciting thing I witnessed at festival was a mesmerisingly manic performance by mad dog Englishman Jamie Lidell. Blessed with a sweetly classic r&b voice, and a passion for improvising with technology, he sampled and mashed his own singing like a 21st century reincarnation of Little Richard Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph (SONAR Festival)

a wonder to behold. remarkably for an Englishman in his twenties, he possesses a soul voice fried in honey like Sly Stone or Prince, and a beatboxing talent to make Muhammad Ali quake in his Everlast. Lidell constructs his tracks live, voicing and layering right in front of your eyes, effortlessly whipping them out of the air and forging them into clanking electro riffs and deathprod funk grooves. His maniac scat is deployed through vocoder, and his real-time arranging follows chaotic but gripping patterns.? The Wire (SONAR Festival)

it was exhilarating in a masochistic kind of way, most of all in Jamie Lidell's astounding solo performance, which combined ecstatically abandoned singing with a lightning-fingered performance on samplers and sequencers, building up polyphonic textures of fearsome violence Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph (Ether Festival)

a wired vaudeville act somewhere between crazed disc jockey and furious music theorist. during his shattering 15 minutes, prince is in bed with Stockhausen, MTV is shook up by Luis Bunuel and there?s blood and soul all over the sheets. If Jamie Cullum is the Roy Castle of post-modern showmanship, Lidells the Jimi Hendrix Paul Morley, Sunday Telegraph (Ether Festival)

Jamie Lidell digitised, looped and corrupted his voice as he sang and beatboxed, dressed in a spangly suit and putting on a thrilling, visceral performance? Independent on Sunday (Ether Festival)

Lidell's set was pure, visceral power: a scintillating display of demented musical and physical energy. He transformed his voice, and his body, into a musical cyborg, sampling vocal riffs and noises that built into textures of shuddering intensity. His performance was projected on a giant screen with live visuals by Pablo Fiasco, who placed cameras on Lidell's head and among his equipment, creating a cinematic experience that was almost as rich as Lidell's soundscapes. It was a thrilling live performance, both experimental and immediate. Lidell was the highlight of the evening The Guardian (Ether Festival)

Permalink | June 24, 2005