Although many people know Liam Bailey from his appearance on Chase and Status’ grime/dance crossover hit ‘Blind Faith’, his solo material has a more traditional quality. Using almost entirely live instrumentation, he creates songs that are reminiscent of the heyday of Detroit Soul. Unsurprising then that the person who first championed his sound was Amy Winehouse, who released his first single on her label and produced one of the tracks on his eagerly awaited debut album Out Of The Shadows. Comparisons with the retro compositions of Michael Kiwanuka are inevitable – and they are well founded. Both have classic crooning voices and their records have an unmistakable, timeless production quality.
In November 2012 Liam put on a sold out show at the Union Chapel and bought the packed venue to a standing ovation, not once but twice. To end the show he performed a stripped back rendition of the aforementioned ‘Blind Faith’ featuring a Cello and his acoustic guitar, that could not have been more different from the thumping original…
Our personal favourite track is ‘Please Love Me’. Kicking off with a bass line that brings to mind The Coral’s classic ‘Dreaming of You’, it develops into something altogether more Motown, with horn led crescendos and lush instrumentation. His tenor vocals cut through to tell a classic love story; admittedly a story we’ve all heard before but why mess with the formula? One line seems particularly apt – “time is all we need” – and with time we predict that Liam Bailey will be the name on everybody’s lips. His album still has no official release date (frustratingly!) but if it’s half as good as tracks like ‘Please Love Me’ and ‘It’s Not The Same’ it will be worth the wait. It seems that the album has already been recorded, but for one reason or another the record company has cold feet. Hopefully his recent successes might warm those toes a little.
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