Jamie Lidell's been raising eyebrows of late with his electrifying stage presence and live shows mixing electronica with an astoundingly soulful voice. I spoke to him about meeting Rick Rubin, the "machine" and being the bastard child of Prince and Stockhausen....

Three's A Crowd - Alright Jamie, where are you?

Jamie Lidell - I'm in a JCB digger.

TAC -Right...What are you doing there?

JL -Oh you know, a bit of construction. There's a wreck needs taking care of...

TAC - Erm, ok....well on to the music then. There's a clear Motown influence in your music. What did you grow up listening to?

JL - Oh...Jerry Rafferty, Michael McDonald, Kate Bush, Rolling Stones. My mum's records basically. Then I moved on to my sister's records – Human League, Thompson Twins, Duran Duran. And I didn't really like that much so I moved on to Prince, Sly Stallone, George Clinton. Then a little bit of Jazz – Sun Ra. So everything from Sun Ra to Phil Collins

TAC - So what can we expect from the new album?

JL - You can expect 10 slabs of sonic gold, fat free, vitamin enriched pop nuggets. I'm really happy with it. I started out with a clear objective: to make a pop record that I liked. There's a cross section of things I listen to really: Pop and things I like. And there's not much overlap. So then I realised that I was Jim Shady, and I should make a record.

TAC - Warp records aren't known for producing the most shall we say accessible or commercial music. You're surely their most pop orientated artist.

JL - Well there's Maximo Park and Jimi Tenor. They're pretty commercial.

TAC – Well why did you decide to go with them? Were other labels interested?

JL - Well yeah, Warners, Columbia, EMI, Sony were all interested. Actually something really cool happened.