Jamie Lidell Gets Creative on the Toilet

The songs on Jamie Lidell's pseudo-eponymous third album, 'Jim,' may sound like they've mined groove-inducing moves from decades spanning Motown through early Prince, but the Berlin-based Brit's songwriting process is firmly entrenched in the present. "I took advantage of my mobile phone to write songs," he tells Spinner. "Whenever I felt creative, I'd sneak off to a toilet and leave a little hook on my voicemail. I'd have to because I don't write music, I hear it. If I can't listen to it playing back to me, I'm kind of screwed."

Lidell's voicemail fodder resulted in some different sounds than those featured on 2005's 'Multiply.' Here, the falsetto-slinger has forgone most of the electro-frills. "I tried to add different bits to the songs this time so they didn't sound like a cat walked into the room and died while we recorded them," he explains. "I tired to please the animal world a little bit more; I wanted to keep my peace."

Lidell would likely say that not only has he achieved peace with 'Jim,' but that he's reached ecstatic heights. Though he sometimes muses fearfully -- of impassioned album opener 'Another Day,' Lidell reveals: "the song is about my worry that one day, I'd wake up from a nightmare and have nothing more to say to you" -- the songs, above all, teem with uplifting melodies. "Sure, the lyrics hide something a bit dark, but my sound can be thought of like putting vitamin pills in orange juice: you have to temper the sweet juice with something a bit sour," Lidell says. "Everybody loves the sweet with the sour. Good is what you'll feel after drinking it -- just like in the end, 'Jim' is definitely feel-good."