Jamie Lidell - Saturday 07.25.2009 - LATE NIGHT
w/ Tortured Soul
Join Silver Wrapper, Relode & Kingtello as we welcome you to throw down with us late night at the Congress Theater for a Wicker Park Fest After Party!

 Jamie Lidell
 Tortured Soul

Jamie Lidell
Jamie Lidell is a modern soul innovator and future funk upsetter who has travelled the road from electronic beat scientist to one-man-Motown-band-meets-beatbox/madman. He may sound like one of your favourite 70's soul singers but his songs and show are truly original. No easy feat to follow up 2005's "Multiply", which garnered many fans and an astounding collection of superlatives still ringing across the world. That album, Jamie's second solo, caught most of us off-guard. After a decade of electronic experimentation that had brought him from underground techno to the science-funk of Super_Collider (with Cristian Vogel), and into his blistering live show, few people expected Jamie to make a couple of honest-to-goodness soul and funk records. Jamie had let those classic influences fuse with his own deeply felt songwriting, meticulous production skills, and most of all, that flipping voice. Hard to believe that the bespectacled self-confessed music nerd who'd grown up fetishising samplers and boxes that went squelch, could belt it out like a Berry Gordy discovery circa 1961. And if you'd seen him live there was another glimpse of the old Jekyll-Hyde routine. Slyly self-deprecating gent becomes relentless sonic showman. The audience were there to dance, and now the man wrapped in gold lame is crooning, spluttering, laughing, transforming words into sounds, noise into signal, a body-rocking beat conjured out of nowhere, and then over that, a rousing harmony. On the edge between control and chaos, Jamie turned music inside out - and it is an exhilarating experience. 2005's "Multiply", by contrast, was steeped in the sincere effort of its creator to write ten great songs. While the influences that infused "Multiply" are still present and correct on his latest album, "Jim", it's a bolder, more promiscuously diverse album, with Jamie restlessly shifting across gospel, disco and even folk, and that chunk of Ôhillbilly funk' thrown in for good measure.

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Tortured Soul
Rose and violet lights fall on three musicians decked out sleekly in skinny ties, pressed slacks, and starched white shirts. The mass of bodies gathered before them pulsates with a unified enthusiasm. Sweet soulful vocals rise from the man in the middle, an effect rendered all the more captivating by the fact that he is concurrently beating out an unrelenting backbeat on the drums. Flanking him on either side are a bassist who jumps up and down to the rhythm as he generates the throbbing low-end, and a keyboardist whose cool composure belies the fire in his fingers. This is Tortured Soul. Born of the simple yet adventurous belief that modern dance music can be performed completely live, Brooklyn's Tortured Soul packs dance floors with their unique live performances, while their recorded oeuvre pushes the genre boundaries of soul, dance, and pop. Combining elements of old soul and funk with a modern dancefloor sensibility, Tortured Soul's style is both an echo of the past and a challenge to the future. This blend of sounds has won them praise from palettes as diverse as Lenny Kravitz and Barry Manilow, and made them a fave pick of DJ's across many genres. Their tracks have received remix treatment from such luminaries as Osunlade, DJ Spinna, Alix Alvarez, Quentin Harris and Dimitri from Paris among others, and have appeared on over 25 compilations by the most prominent dance labels, from Hed Kandi to Defected - a testament in and of itself to the impact they've had on current dance music.

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