Many people were under the impression that the Multiply album was some sort of a joke: Jamie Lidell making an acoustic soul record full of real songs? But it happened to be true, and the result was astonishing. Most people know Lidell as the iconoclast of the Warp label, the man associated with 'electronic disco', intelligent dance music, and avant-garde trips with Matthew Herbert, with whom he recorded the album Goodbye Swing Time. On stage Lidell would normally chop up the sound of his voice by means of electronics, but at a certain point he felt that something was lacking: the beautiful songs of days gone by. That's why he sought inspiration with soul legends like Otis Redding, Marvin Gay and funk-rock stars like Prince, which resulted in Multiply, an exceptional album that surprised both friends and enemies.
