JAMIE LIDELL - Compass

Let's not dance around the subject (ha!): white dudes making R&B is always a tricky deal. Be too stylistically reverential and on point, and it just comes across as cheap imitation at best, and inappropriate at worst. But be too irreverent and wacky with the form, and it while it might be your own style, it can be awfully disingenuous and trendy.

For my money, Jamie Lidell is walking this line about as well as any caucasian you can name. It helps that the man can actually sing, for one—his voice is a marvelously tangled, mangled mess, alternately ravaged and sensuous. But whether he's trying to modernize (2005's Multiply) or inhabit (2008's Jim), he makes far more good decisions than bad.

He's not immune to falling flat on his face, but when he does, it's usually when he's playing it safe—Jim's Stevie Wonder-aping first single, "Little Bit Of Feel Good", and that same record's Maroon 5-esque "Figured Me Out" are probably his worst offenders. Compass does many things (some better than others), but one thing it does not do is play it safe. This is easily Lidell's most diverse record—the squelchy belch funk of "The Ring", the marachi-tinged title-track ballad, the ricochet beats of "You Are Waking"—he's all over the place and clearly enjoying the experience. At 14 songs, Compass ironically comes across as a little lost at first, but once you acclimatize to its anything-goes spirit, it's a thrilling collection. The highs of Multiply are never quite reached, but it's a real flag-in-the-sand moment for the man—an attempt to stake claim to a brand of oddball R&B a weirdo white guy can call his own. When he hits the late album peak of the Beck-assisted "Coma Chameleon" and the absolutely luscious velvet drapes of "Big Drift", you know he's onto a voice that is an honest one. You can't ask for much more than that.