Jamie Lidell: Jim (Warp)

BACK AT THE turn of the millennium, Jamie Lidell was a cutting-edge electronic musician, crooning over abstract, fractured beats and jittery synth blips as one-half of Super_Collider, whose stylistic lineage owed much to earlier techno-romantic pioneers like Suicide and Cabaret Voltaire. So it was no surprise when the wider world proved (still) not yet ready for their odd mix of itchy insect grooves and soulman emoting. Accordingly, Lidell took a mainstream swerve in the direction of classic Seventies funk for 2005's Multiply, and secured the plaudits of such pop-tastic icons as Elton John and Lenny Kravitz.