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Daedelus - Love To Make Music To (Ninjatune)
UK release date: 9 June 2008
3.5 stars
Daedelus - Love To Make Music To

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track listing

1. Fair Weather Friends
2. Make It So - Daedelus & Michael Johnson
3. Twist The Kids - Daedelus & N'fa
4. Get Off Your Hihats
5. Hrs:Mins:Secs
6. Touchtone - Daedelus & Paperboy/Taz
7. I Car(ry) Us
8. I Took Two
9. My Beau - Daedelus & Erika Rose/Paperboy
10. You're The One - Daedelus & Om'mas Keith
11. Assembly Lines
12. Drummery Jam
13. Only For The Heartstrings
14. Bass In It - Daedelus & Taz
15. If We Should - Daedelus & Laura Darlington

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Experimental, experimental, experimental.

Not the golden rule of what you should look for when making an artist album for Ninja Tune, rather the mantra on the Daedelus MySpace page. It explains why he eludes any form of categorisation, and why even as a DJ on his recent Live From Low End Theory import, he could be found sneakily moving from one style to another.

One thing was clear in that frantic hour's mix, however, and that was his love of house music, which gets exploited here. Make It So does that most enjoyably, with a slow-moving unison chorus given a bouncy beat to cavort with. In one of several explicit references towards early acid house on the album, I Took Two sports a full frontal lift from It Takes Two, put in tandem with a helter-skelter beat, while Get Off Your HiHats takes the old rickety piano sound so beloved of '80s rave and feeds it through the blender.

Alongside this love of house is a semi-programmatic element, as Daedelus deals in fantasy, too. An elaborate story of Alfred Darlington accompanies the album, the notion being that this music has been teleported in from over a hundred years ago, and that Daedelus is Mr Darlington, a young inventor from Los Angeles who serves the pioneer of modern electricity, Nikola Tesla.

Certainly this album makes copious use of electricity, but throws all manner of analogue sounds in with it. A plethora of guests ensure the party goes with a swing. Touchtone features broadsides from Paperboy and Taz, as an organ flicks out riffs in the background.

Not all the experiments are as successful - despite trying to get my head round the broken beats and curious vocals of I Car(ry) Us, I remain bewildered, despite the intoxicating nature of the track. But it's these qualities that lift the wonderfully strange You're The One well above the surface, a chromatic violin descent bringing in a soulful and syncopated vocal from Om'mas Keith.

The principal appeals of Daedelus' music lie firstly in its energy and secondly in the feeling the author is always having a huge amount of fun when he makes it, delighting in throwing the rulebook out the window. It's this approach that makes Love To Make Music a success and a highly entertaining listen.


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