| "Well, we broke up because it was an experiment," goes the sample that kicks off Rethinking the Weather. Could Daedelus be dropping a tongue-in-cheek reference to The Weather - that album, an experimental partnership with left-field emcees Busdriver and Radioinactive, was a head-scratcher featuring lyrical freeflow and carnival style, anything goes production. It was also brilliant, and Daedelus is smart to take another dip into that material. Daedelus lays down twelve tracks of playful cut 'n' paste, stitching together elements from The Weather with the more standard grooves and sampling of his last solo release, The Quiet Party EP. The results are somewhere in the nether regions between DJ Shadow, Prefuse 73, and Bruce Haack. On "Bright Stars" he merges a shaky whistle solo with a lizard lounge backing band. Meanwhile, "The Weather's Secret Service" features a twirling LSD thrust carried by frothy, head-nodding bottom-end. These tracks barely stay within the margins of downtempo. As on Invention, Daedelus' superb debut, experimentation spills over on a regular basis. Instead of driving off potential customers with blasts of exasperating obliqueness, Rethinking the Weather sells its goods with a soft and incremental touch. It's a nice middle ground for the world of hip-hop, which needs a blithe pixie like Daedelus to shake up its self-imposed boundaries and mandates. - Outburn |
1XLP/Out Of Print