Jamie Lidell Has Grown Up And Matured, Maybe We Should Too

I don’t usually feel envious of anyone else’s life. Like, it’s cool whatever you’re doing with your illustrious career, insane holidays, minimal interiors and model partners. I wish you well. I can plod along just fine with my crappy flat, freelance music jobs, precarious personal life and the grimy confines of east London, but after speaking with Jamie Lidell recently, my eyes suddenly glowed a shade greener. Lidell released an eponymous record on Warp last weekend, and has it all sorted as this act would suggest. He has found his most comfortable groove yet on ‘Jamie Lidell’. A sassy, bounding, deftly crafted electronic encapsulation of his work so far.

Lidell sculpted and mixed ‘Jamie Lidell’ in his own studio in his spacious Nashville home. Splitting his free time hanging out with local legends, producing esoteric records for others, and occasionally heading up to Brooklyn to catch newer acts like label-mates TNGHT. All self-destructive urges banished and replaced by musical prolificacy. The tracks for this record emanated from Lidell’s looper at first. Abundant, capricious inspirations chased till their ultimate use transpired. Lyrics coming through a mixture of subconscious automaticity and the need to nail these utterances to the meticulous beats already stitched in. A loose sounding, irresistibly joyous album the result; with the most invidious thing about where Lidell’s at oozing out of it. It’s the output of a man who’s dealt with all his shit. Lidell is truly content. I mean that’s something to be envious of right? What is that?! Well, definitely enough of my issues for a start.

Here’s what we talked about a couple of months ago:

Did you settle into life in Nashville easily?

We synchronised our arrival with the thirteen year cicada attack. The skies were blackened with cicadas. They bury themselves for thirteen years and they’ve survived for millions. We arrived bang on it, so it should have given Nashville this really ominous character, but they’re kind of cool those little beasts. Beautiful those little creatures. I always feel like I’m an alien in America.

So, you’re going to be playing this record all on stage by yourself again?

Yea, it’s quite risky that. It’s something I still haven’t nailed in my mind. I used to make the tracks at shows in real time, and there’ll be some of that.

Is doing it all yourself a way of keeping yourself from stagnating once you’re on the road?

I guess so, yea. Hopefully you wake up and you’re always inspired. In the past I’ve tried lots of things. I’ve tried to imagine, you know, how I look through other people’s eyes. I gave up worrying about that on this album. I just tried to tap into what was keeping me excited. The good thing about having the studio at the house is that I could just pick the time when I was really up for making music and keep it fun. I think, that shows in the music, it’s got a lot of life and heart.

Touring alone doesn’t send you too introverted and loopy then?

I’ve done that. You just look into the abyss, you have this money but go ‘what am I doing?’. Now that I have a life, and a house, and a wife I know what it’s all for. There’s a song on the album called ‘I’m Selfish’ and I think a lot of musicians are fighting that inherent selfishness. Ultimately it’s very easy to find something more important and I don’t know why it took me so long. I didn’t have the philosophical understanding. I thought that hedonism and selfishness were good models.

For your art or for life?

Probably for art. Trying to justify the behaviour. Knowing that it’s not great but you get results.

When you’re constantly in a situation where you’re not around when anyone else with a normal life is I guess it’s easy to fill those gaps with partying.

That’s exactly it. Now I feel really lucky that I’m not where I was before.

The music hasn’t suffered for it either.

That’s it. I know why I’m in music now. It takes a while as am artist to work that out. You might be posturing at the beginning, or doing it for fashion, or money, or a million different reasons, but now I know it’s just something I have to do and I really enjoy it. It’s a crucial part of my identity.

Coming back to electronic music on ‘Jamie Lidell’, did that feel like a culmination of your career to date?

Yea, it does feel like a bit of a full circle in a lot of ways. I mean back in those days when I did ‘Muddling Gear’, I had the electronics but I didn’t really know how I liked to write songs. Then I did the other records, then touring and working with Beck, Feist, Gonzalez and all these great people. Seeing how they do it and just learning. I feel like I’m a bit more of a master of my craft than I was. I think that’s ultimately why I can justify calling the album ‘Jamie Lidell’, because it feels like it’s very me.

Have you been influenced by your new surroundings? Have you found yourself starting to like country and western?

There’s great song writing that goes on there, especially in the traditional realm, awesome. A friend of ours was having a party with Will Oldham and a bunch of those old boys. A real Nashville scene, sitting on the porch playing old time shit, and it sounded incredible to me. If you can’t get song writing ideas from that you’re a fool. That stuff is straight from the heart. It’s like white blues. Actually, it’s funny as we saw Die Antwoord in Nashville and I was expecting there to be like twenty people but there were a thousand people crammed in a warehouse going nuts. Bass Nectar sold out a twenty thousand capacity arena, paying dubstep in Nashville.

The Americans all love it now.

Yeah, it’s weird. The kids are definitely off on another one. I went to see TNGHT play in Brooklyn before this. A hyped up show, I really didn’t understand the type of people that were there as I’m used to the English rave scene way back in the 90s. I basically feel like an alien,like a cicada in a club.

I’m guessing you’re into your label mates like Rustie and Flying Lotus too?

Yeah and Grizzly Bear. I’m lucky to be on Warp and I was really happy to be able to deliver an electronic album to Warp. It’s a good feeling. Everything feels like it’s where it should be. I got Rustie to remix Another Day way back in 2008, back then no one had really heard of Rustie. It’s awesome. Warp’s brilliant.

What do you think to the “EDM” guys, Bass Nectar and Skrillex? Do you get why they sell so much?

I totally get it. I remember when Prodigy dropped. I opened for them at Peterborough ice rink when I was 17. It was a real wake up. Just a barrage of sonics. So I think the whole bass thing ticks those boxes. It’s amazing sound design, the bass sound in ‘Scary Monsters’, when that drops it’s like a roller coaster. It has a short appeal, very explosive wow factor, but shallow wow. It’s easy to hate on those guys, but I think it wouldn’t have been anything if it didn’t get the kids to go ‘Woooah’. I used to love hardcore and Prodigy. Same kind of rush. ‘Teen Sprit’ same thing, you wait for the huge drop. Everyone gets a little chance to do that shit.

Do you ever mess around with making different types of tracks?

I don’t really do it enough and I think I’d learn a lot. Harmony Korinne got Skrillex to score his movie. One time he came over and said to me, ‘Well can you do that? Can you make that kind of shit?’ I like to say in the back of my mind, ‘Yea of course, I’ve been producing for like twenty years,’ but I was like, ‘I don’t know if I could’. They’ve got something that’s theirs. I always feel a bit dodgy doing that. It’s the sort of thing that happens when you’re doing music for ads. ‘Can you do something that sounds like Skrillex but with a bit of this in it?’. Then you end up being a master at ripping off something rather than developing on your own. So I try to just dedicate my energy to learning the craft, but you’re always being influenced and moving in the waves and history of music. You can’t sit on an event or genre.

Do you think it would be harder to do what you do if you started now? With how much things have shifted. With labels losing their grasp and brands stepping in, but for a price.

It’s a good question, I worked with this guy Ludwig Percy, great guy, but he’s not signed and that’s his strongest asset. He’s sitting at the cusp of people getting a piece of it. Once he’s done it then he’s lost his novelty, his virginity. I think a lot of people make the mistake of trying to go for something, but not understanding what they’ve got or how valuable that could be to the corporate world or to people who are willing to prey on it. That’s ugly for a lot of artists trying to think about it, but man, you’ve got to.

It’s really hard to make a career out of music now. There’s no money in sales, so you’ve got to think beyond that, to the Redbulls and Vices of the world. They’re hugely important for musicians. The world loves art and would hate to lose it, but it doesn’t really know that it might be losing it. In New York, it’s so expensive, but they need art so much and yet they’re making it impossible for artists to live and thrive and then they’re like, ‘Well, where’s the art gone? Where’s the throbbing heart of the New York underground?’. Where do you think it’s gone? They had to leave.

I used to be so opposed to brands and stuff like that, but you just have to see the big picture. See what you’re doing it for and if it can help you do a good show, help you do something you’ve never done before, and you really want to do that then you should do it. It’s not dirty. The purity aspect can hold a lot of people back.

Past releases are on sale now via www.jamielidell.com

Photography by Lindsey Rome