Andy Seifert

It's the ultimate trifecta: the perfect makeout album, an album for your headphones and an album for the dance floor—with "Jim," English soul-rocker Jamie Lidell may have produced the best pure tribute album of the last five years. For an artist known to leave his chaotic live shows with random things on fire, "Jim" is a fairly focused, polished affair, less frenetic but twice as charming. With Lidell boasting the vocal chops of a young Stevie Wonder, he churns out one Motown-esque hit after another; "Another Day" doo-wops along like a Temptations b-side; "All I Wanna Do" may be the closest thing we have to a modern-day version of Sam Cooke's croon; and "Figure Me Out," were it recorded in 1983, would have easily been placed on the "Ghostbusters" soundtrack. Best of all, Lidell doesn't need to resort to lo-fi production to create the aura of a vintage record, but hits you in the chest with some serious soul instead.

Jamie Lidell plays October 8 at Metro, 3730 North Clark, (773)549-0203, at 9pm. $22.

(2008-09-30)

Also by Andy Seifert

Soundcheck
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After the Beep
Another missed call, another voicemail. I call my mailbox, and the message is twistedly ominous: just distant laughter, not particularly threatening but completely unrecognizable. I check to see the number, and the caller ID identifies the culprit. "David Vandervelde," it says, as in the mellow folk-rocker from Michigan, a mid-afternoon act at Lollapalooza 2007 and the dude I just interviewed for a story via cell phone a week ago. Though he seems like a classy, laid-back guy, I wouldn't call myself "friends" with David Vandervelde
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Tip of the Week
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