| Los Angeles-based avant-hip-hop producer Daedelus has already made his mark on the US left-field hip-hop scene with a string of releases through a number of different labels including Eastern Developments, Plug Research and Mush, his 2002 effort alongside frequent collaborator Busdriver, The Weather being a standout highlight amongst that year's releases. Exquiste Corpse represents his fifth artist album overall and shows Daedalus fusing complex beat programming ala Diplo and Amon Tobin, with a strangely vintage-sounding sample palette drawn from such unexpected sources as acoustic folk and 1930's/40's string arrangements, while also taking a brace of collaborations with the likes of MF Doom, Prefuse73, Mike Ladd and French hip-hop outfit TTC. The opening track, "Dearly Departed" provides a blurry, dreamlike intro to proceedings, with lush sampled string beds and rattling drum loops providing vast backdrop for a playful female vocal lifted from vintage vinyl that winds its way through the shuffling beats and buzzing analogue keyboards in manner that calls to mind Deadringer period RJD2, before "Impending Doom" drags things straight back into more conventional hip-hop territory, with MF Doom laying down his dense flow over scattering drum breaks, fuzzy funk guitar samples and a slightly insane-sounding 1930's orchestra loop adding a teetering, slightly out-of-control vibe to Doom's tense verbiage. "Just Briefly" melds a nagging country-blues rock riff that calls to mind Manitoba with skittering stop-start rhythms and crashing cymbals, subtly-placed sampled soul vocals taking the entire track down into a lush, ebbing strings breakdown while "Move On" blasts upon with sampled kung-fu movie dialogue and revving motorcycles, before a barrage of videogame bleeps takes things into dreamy, trailing Esquivel-style lounge, blurred-out backing vocals, slow drums and snaking flutes providing a drifting backdrop for Scienz of Life's Sci, who lays down a nostalgia-tinged flow of imagery that works beautifully against the melancholic background melodies. "Now & Sleep" offers a woozy and delicate, yet slightly sinister moment, with Laura Darling softly intoning a child's lullaby over distant analogue synths, slow pianos and buzzing and whirring electronics that slowly rise up into the foreground amidst timestretched snares and all manner of digital contortion, while "The Crippled Hand" offers perhaps this album's darkest instrumental moment, with a vintage-sounding female vocal and piano melody riding over furiously-ratcheting beat-programming similar to the darkest, most contorted IDM moments explored by the likes of Amon Tobin, the doomy relentless mechanical harshness of the rhythms oddly counterpointed by the surreal, soft-focus flutes and even a massive James Bond-style sampled horn breakdown. "Welcome Home" appears here in two different versions, first in a "Prefuse 73 Danse Macabre" version which sees Scott Herren and Daedelus crafting a smooth, rolling instrumental fusion of spidery analogue keyboards, blurred-out organ tones and dreamy looped female vocals that rides along lazily over trademark clicking Prefuse 73 IDM-hop rhythms, and as a second vocal version with Mike Ladd sliding up to the mic to deliver an uneasy-sounding verbal monologue in his trademark lazy beat drawl over slow metronomic beats and trailing female vocals ("Someone said California smells like this in dreams / I clutch the sofa, wake and tremble"). Hrishikesh Hirway contributes vocals, guitar and drums to "Thanatopsis," his cut-up and reassembled beatboxing providing a rhythmic pulse that rides alongside softly chiming guitar tones and rattling sampled drum breakdowns, Hirway's lazy sun-tinged vocal calling to mind UK post-rockers Hood as it glides over mournful horns and stray digital effects, before "Cadavre Exquis" brings this album to a boisterous close, with Gallic hip-hoppers TTC laying down their colourful French verbal flow over a rhythmic backdrop that's part cabaret-lounge, part blip-hop, furious samples and turntable cuts clinging closely to dubbed-out synth pulses, psychedelic guitars and a wash of chiming bells and percussion. Exquiste Corpse is a stunning new album from left-field hip-hop producer Daedelus that manages to throw together a staggering number of different musical reference points and influences into its fourteen tracks, whilst also conjuring up a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere that remains consistently unbroken, even throughout the numerous artist collaborations and stylistic detours undertaken here (an attribute often less easily captured on this sort of collab-heavy release). Most importantly perhaps, Exquiste Corpse shows that Daedelus is definitely pursuing his own eccentric, vintage-flavoured trajectory; while there are certainly similarities herein with the likes of fellow Ninja artists Diplo and Amon Tobin, as well as the woozy vintage sampled blues-soul of early RJD2, there's an indefinable x-factor drifting throughout the sweeping strings and acoustic textures that definitely sets Daedelus apart on his own. One of the best new releases I've heard in a while; those into dreamlike IDM/hip-hop along the lines of Diplo and Boom Bip will love this. Highly Recommended. - In the Mix |
1XLP/Out Of Print