WHAT'S NEXT
If you went solely by his previous musical outings you could be inclined to believe that Santa Monica-born Alfred Wiesburg Roberts, known as Daedelus, is the man to take hip hop and electronica's bastardized lovechild forward. Well, in a way he is, but it goes way further than that.
If his penchant for Edwardian attire and drawing heavy influence from early 90s UK hardcore doesn't suggest something other, then maybe a closer inspection of his homemade sounds will. Personally responsible for a plethora of visionary releases on Plug Research, Mush, Eastern Developments, etc, Daedelus' uncompromising knack of fusing elements as disparate as techno, jazz, classical, rap, lullabies, 30s and 40s string arrangements, Japanese easy listening and, of course, hip hop has so far resulted in six studio albums. He's also played some of London's most important live shows this year.
The album touches on many styles and influences. Is it a true representation of you?
"This record is the fullest representation of my material yet, by far. Just in the sense that I've always been fidgeting between a hip hop and an electronic idea, like an amalgamation of the two."
Where do you draw the line between what's sample-based and what you create from scratch?
"I'm kind of a maximalist. I can't resist using something that, if the sample's right for the situation, would benefit what I'm doing. More often than not, my work tends to end up being a mix of both. It's not necessarily about it being simple - it's about it being an instrument. Whatever's the most immediate will go in."
How does that apply to 'Exquisite Corpse'?
"It has a lot to do with the fact that previously I've tried to create a certain type of mood on my records, whether that's hip hop or electronic or whatever, it's been more about me wanting to set a feeling that may be either mysterious, dusky, minor or major. Something like 'Adventure Time' was more of a major project whereas the 'Of Snowdonia' record was probably less. I guess there's different ways of looking at it. This album is the first one that tends to go all over the place because I have some sort of a unifying theme, both for myself and for my collaborators and that really helps navigate all of the difficult terrain."
Did that make the process easier?
"For me, titles usually come when putting an album together. Most times it's just a collection of songs I've done that doesn't always make much sense. But since I started out with a mandate of producers and artists from outside of LA that I wanted to work with, it came together really fast. The way it was going was almost like I had an idea of what I wanted to do next, even before the collaborators got involved, so it made it very immediate."
It seems like the whole process really inspired you. Is that true?
"Everything came together really quickly. The first people to come onboard were Cyne and then Sci from Scienz of Life and both their flows were kind of backward-facing in a way, which made so much more room for the forward-facing stuff that Mike Ladd and MF Doom brought to the project later. It was a meeting of both solos and collaborations that somehow crystallized as one entity."
Was there honest feedback from the collaborators as to the direction of where the music was going?
"The cool thing with Doom in the end was that he was, like, 'This bangs, but this is the weirdest thing I've ever done', and that's coming from someone who's a weird dude himself, so it was nice to hear. It put a feather in my cap and I could call it Macaroni, should I say (laughs)."
SWAX MCIVER