| He may vamp like Beck, sport 70's hard rock mutton chops a la Judas Priest, and occasionally dress like a 19th century aristocrat (see cover of his wildly oscillating debut Invention for proof), but LA-based producer/composer/DJ Daedelus has quickly established himself as nothing less than the consummate innovator of the IDM-hop set, working alongside everyone from fellow studio maestro Prefuse 73 to underground hip-hop godz Madlib and (Anti-Pop Consortium's) High Priest along the way. Using the instrumental beds of The Weather (his collaboration with avant emcees Busdriver and Radioinactive) as a guidepost, Daedelus has hacked, modulated, and deconstructed the tracks in order to bring you the stammering slab of juvenilia that is Rethinking the Weather. Delicately ornate and unerringly tuneful, much of Rethinking the Weather sounds like Willy Wonka going off his tits with a Dr. Sample and a Roland 909, using the chocolate factory, and the Oompa Loompas for that matter, as his own personal sampledelic playground. "The Weather's Secret Service" is all snarky Bond-innuendo wrapped in jittery breaks and translucent blips, "Dark Days" marries starbursts beats with jaunty 70's commercial-radio sampling and an inescapable keyboard tacet, and "Name Game" is the sound of Boards of Canada crafting astral lullabies for PBS after-school specials. At this point in the game, Daedelus' only peers appear to be Bay Area surrealists cLOUDDEAD and shifty post-modern composer Dabrye, but even those left-field minstrels don't hold a candle to the mutton-chopped one's inherent grasp of the insipid and the inspired, a true testament to his wracked resonant vision. While it's not hip-hop envisaged in the grand tradition of Fab 5 Freddy and Grandmaster Flash, Rethinking the Weather jack-in-the-box aural vistas prove just how far hip-hop has come in its relatively short lifespan, and, perhaps more importantly, how much further it has to go. - Grooves |
1XLP/Out Of Print