DAEDELUS
DAEDELUS' NEW ALBUM LOVE TO MAKE MUSIC TO IS A PLAYFUL, PSYCHEDELIC ROMP THROUGH RAVE-INSPIRED HIP-HOP. SCOTT RAMAGE CATCHES UP WITH THE MAN HIMSELF TO DISCUSS VICTORIAN CLOTHING, GREEK GODS AND THE BIRDS AND THE BEES...

"Something about those 1800s keep me up at night. Perhaps it is the last vestige of a largely handcrafted culture. Maybe it's the strange and wonderful inventions, useful and useless. Certainly the dandy attire, and intoxicating ankles and wrists. Or something could be said for an age bygone and largely forgotten, save works of music, poetry, and prose that still resonate wonderfully so." So says Daedelus, the experimental electronic producer known for his habit of dressing in traditional Victorian clothing. He's also responsible for upcoming album Love To Make Music To, which, as the name suggests, is a woozy haze of sweet, playful and inventive beats, fusing together hip-hop rhythms with acidic sounds and rave energy.

"Love To Make Music To is my chance to wrestle our modern with the once futuristic," reflects Daedelus. "This LP is in part my teenage dream, my young aspirations to be Altern8, or maybe in a wild dream, Acen - artists I'm sure most of my past audience has never heard of. They are giants of my childhood, among the first musicians to let me see a world of sound."

It's a long way form the young boy who grew up in America trained in classical music and jazz, whose head was turned by catching early hardcore and rave on a pirate radio station. Talking about what sparked his interest, he says: "I can't say it was the actual raves. I was far too nerdy and a bit too young to really get out to the illegal warehouse events that L.A. was quite famous for. For me it was the sound, the swirling mix of all styles that sat next to each other, battling each other. Personally, I've always leaned towards breakbeats. My previous offerings are full of these hip-hop influenced ideas (even if they sounded more hip-house at times), but now sees some four-on-the-floor with other odder rhythms thrown in, much like these early rave records did. All my previous records had a moment or too trying for this, this record just outnumbers those singular moments 15-1."

According to the press release, Love To Make Music To is a "drug/love record" which deals with "sexual fever." Daedelus is the typical gentleman when asked about this concept: "At sometime perhaps one of your parents may have explained the birds and the bees. This concept is not so different. I believe sexual fever to be an illness stemming from these urges. How this has to do with the record I'm not sure. I'll have to ask others if perhaps they've fallen under the malady somehow from my innocent recording..."
He's right: the truth is that Love To Make Music To is a dreamier, sweeter affair. "It wasn't so much a conscious decision - I've rarely made any of those. Let's not get sinister with talk of conspiracy, but perhaps say that I like a listener to have fun listening. That's a noble aim, right? Any attempt is part experiment, part experience."

So, how does Daedelus put a track together? "Always with a grain of truth first. Something light enough to almost disappear once captured - an ephemeral audio as short as a snare drums crack. Then I'll try to lattice together the bare bones of melody, conceptual idea, and rhythm. Usually at this point I've nearly given up defeated, and right before I erase the whole thing, perhaps something will turn the tide and the song appears fully born like Athena from Zeus's head. That is, if I'm lucky."

Behind the music is a considered figure, but playful and inviting with a vibrant sense of jumour - and it's exactly how the music sounds. Victorian indulgence has never been so modern.

SCOTT RAMAGE

Mush Records