| Writing several hundred album reviews during the course of a few years takes its toll on you. Combine that with studying music theory for nearly a decade and it becomes really difficult to just enjoy new music without hanging some kind of ethnomusicalogical significance on every note. I credit these experiences for my bias towards Alfred Weisberg-Roberts' - or rather, Daedelus' - music; I never quite got hold of Of Snowdonia or A Gent Agent, though I own both. However, I think I've solved the problem. As I played Exquiste Corpse for a friend the other day, her sixteen-year old sister popped in from the kitchen to comment, "This is fun... and weird." Suddenly, it clicked: Daedelus's music is fun, in the same way that I enjoyed (still do) Beck's Mellow Gold in my youth, long before the need for post-modern analysis and a jaded attitude set in. The ninety degree turns between tracks are endearing, like a cool mix-tape - not cause for head scratching and folded arms. Weisberg-Roberts isn't an overbearing Svengali, out to flaunt an in-your-face agenda through his choice of samples. He opts for an anything goes approach, and the results are brilliant. Weisberg-Roberts couldn't care less about genres, but his music always finds its way into the record store's hip-hop bin. Exquiste Corpse is his defiant response to this label - he rebels like a thirteen year-old who's just been told that he has to spend his third straight summer at camp. Otherwise, why would he choose emcees like the ambiguous chameleon MF Doom, the least political, least gangsta on the block, to guest on Impending Doom. Over Lawrence Welk Show melodies and a speedy Tito Puente rhythm, Doom spits, "Bro, this beat is sickly retarded, yo / Sound like it came off the Hate Ricky Ricardo Show / A few bones for an intelligent plan, a couple of grand and an elephant man hand / Bring the skeleton you might get a whole jam." Sickly retarded, indeed - you can imagine the two giggling over bong hits in the studio during playback. On "Welcome Home," Daedelus matches wits with fellow misnomer Prefuse 73, who brings in his danse macabre of glitching MPC beats to further smudge the lines. "Move On" bows in the Wu-Tang dojo with B-movie martial arts samples and rapper Sci's ghetto rhymes, though the music is founded on samples closer to Pizzicato Five's lounge. The Neptunes are shoved down a flight of stairs as Dancehall toasting meets music boxes, string sweeps and a conga line for "Cadavre Exquis." The instrumental tracks employ similar perversions, mixing unlikely elements to cultivate unclassified combos. Based on his background (a fancy scoring degree from USC, jingle writing, remixing tracks for Donnie Darko), Weisberg-Roberts seems to be reacting to what he's supposed to be doing: being serious, feeling stressed out over eighteen hour work days while conducting to a click-track with Hanz Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams frowning in the control room. Instead, he's enjoying himself with an enthusiasm that, as a listener, is impossible to ignore. As Daedelus squeezes new life from his monumental record collection, cranking out tracks as fast as he can, champing at the bit to release his next album, he continues to confuse the critics, who can't figure out what he'll do next or why he wants to do it. Whatever it is, it'll make you smile in admiration - even if you're not quite sure what you're listening to. - Dusted |
1XLP/Out Of Print