Jamie Lidell Performs Live on the Interface

When British soul-rocker Jamie Lidell popped by Spinner's New York studio to record his recent Interface, the chap was in a great mood. He had every reason to be, as this was his third time taping one of these sessions. "It's a record, and we like to celebrate," Lidell said. "I might have a little bit of confetti that will pop out of my ear or nose, so don't be disturbed if I cough anything up."

While Lidell didn't expel anything that we knew of, he did open up about the more emotional aspects of his latest Warp Records release, 'Compass.' In the period since 2007's 'JIM,' Lidell switched his business managers and music operations up, moved around a bunch and ended a long-term romantic relationship. "I had a kind of triple whammy," he said. "I was just trying to hang on, really, in the wind of change. There was some footage of me during that time and man, I just looked like Skeletor. I was all gaunt and pasty. I'd lost all this weight and it's crazy seeing that now, because in a way, now I'm in a really good spot."

Lidell worked with a host of people on 'Compass,' including Beck, Feist and Wilco's Pat Sansone. 'Coma Chameleon' was co-written with Beck and was one of the earlier tracks the two fleshed out. "Lyrically, it's about this major shake-up before the final curtain -- that's always a classic. It's this really sweet little tune. We had a three-day stint at his house and we did four tunes in that time. That was one of them. I was playing around and this is a real classic example here of a little home studio: His assistant engineers already looped up and made a little structure, and Beck's like, 'Yeah, I think we got something here.'"

Lidell's fans would say that this is pretty typical of the genre-bending artist, but the way he tells it, it sounds like he's still just discovering new tricks on a daily basis.