| Daedalus: it's a big name to live up to, even if you've misspelled it. No, especially if you've misspelled it, and especially if you're an Edwardian fop from Santa Monica with a penchant for backpackery. The Daedalus of myth was the original engineer and a consummate craftsman, whether designing a labyrinth or inventing a way to fly himself out of it. Daedalus represents the sort of wise, mature artist who can exercise the discipline to fly neither so close to the sea that the waves wash away the glue in his wings, nor so close to the sun that they melt. So how does this particular Daedelus, the producer/pasticher perform? Not badly at all. An excitable and overly confident beat-maker might easily falter and burn by playing with this wide a range of influences and sounds, but Daedelus sculpts them with a sure hand. "Sundown" turns a vocal melody that suggests the opening to "The Star-Spangled Banner" into inchoate yearning, adds a gratingly catchy keyboard riff that would have made any New Romantic band proud and then piles on a Brazilian dance flourish that culminates in the sounds of a political rally or a futb'l riot about to erupt. Remixes play up various elements, but they can't quite compete with the original's balance and timing. Daedelus chops and stacks his ingredients in a way that, more ably than Akufenic mincemeat or Prefusean gaps, propels the track to its heights. There's not much to improve on but it's a pity the remixers didn't give it a shot anyway, maybe pulling an Icarus to give us something that shoots too high and fails, but flowers in its flaws. Dark Party pours a club gloss over the song; Diplo does Diplo and roughs things up enough to just hint at a baile blast rather than the late-era Planet E single the original seems to borrow from. Only Lulu Mushi can resist pruning the song's prettier blooms, keeping all its sweet and skittering ambivalence as a fitting contrast for their steel drum workout. - Paper Thin Walls |
1XEP/Out Of Print