Daedalus, the most famous inventor in ancient Greece, is probably best known for fathering a dipshit. Daedalus' son Icarus reckoned himself such a player when he decided that flying higher than anywhere else on flimsy wings held together with wax (the Scotch tape of ancient Greece) was a good thing. Icarus was killed when he plummeted into the sea after the heat of the Aegean sun melted away the wax on his wings. It wasn't for another two thousand years or so that Leonardo Da Vinci thought about winged flight-- Icarus' stupidity put everyone but the Renaissance genius off the idea of becoming birdy.
Daedalus, though, was a shrewd man. He constructed one or two questionable things, and chief amongst them was a cow. Yes, Daedalus fulfilled a request from King Minos' wife Pasiphae to make her a cow costume so that she could fuck a bull that the sea god Poseidon had sent for Minos to sacrifice in order to confirm his right to rule over Crete. I suppose he looked at the project as more of an engineering challenge than as some kinky request from a sovereign's wife who could have him decapitated if he didn't comply. Despite his successful completion of the task and Pasiphae's successful impregnation by Poseidon's bull, Daedalus still ended up in the chokey. I guess Minos wasn't too pleased when his wife gave birth to the half-human, half-bull chimera, the Minotaur. But before throwing him in the clink, Minos did order Daedalus to construct the labyrinth in which Minos imprisoned the Minotaur. All in all, a pretty remarkable figure, this Daedalus bloke.
As you'd expect, anyone adopting Daedalus' name (albeit with a tiny alteration in spelling) takes on a slew of pre-conceived notions. Fortunately, the gorgeous and nigh-on-unique Invention is more than worthy of assuming the name of its ancient Greek forbearer. Daedelus takes downtempo IDM and adds the naivety of childhood and the poignancy of Tin Pan Alley ballad arrangements. Just as Dntel's Life Is Full of Possibilities charmed me out of my IDM ennui last year, so too has Invention.
Daedelus' combination of Mush-style beats with the dew-eyed nostalgia of 1940s and 1950s string arrangements may seem awkward on paper, but nowhere does the combination of avant electronics and strings jar or sound forced. Daedelus has realized what the downtempo elite Broadway Project and Bonobo have known for a while now: contrast need not disturb. Throughout Invention, I'm amazed at how complementary the opposites sound. During "Playing Parties," a low frequency sawtooth sound emerges from the skirts of a stately, stomping concert grand piano into a glitched-up clockwork world of nursery toys. Daedelus presents a sound picture of gentle chimes and bells and whirs, then ushers in the star attraction-- a synthetic melody line every bit as romantic as the one Jega used on his stand-out "Geometry."
The opening string ensemble sample that begins "Pursed Lips Reply" recalls the wistful poignancy of the Hollywood String Quartet's accompaniment to Frank Sinatra's 1957 album Close to You, a sentiment builds throughout the track. Daedelus recasts that 50s nostalgia with "Astroboy," a complexly arranged tune with segmented spoken word narration. It's like Brian Aldiss' short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" (the foundation for Kubrick/Spielberg's A.I.) retold for first-graders. Remarkably, the chopped story of a robot wondering about its identity is never cloying or even, in fact, resolved.
For "Adventress," Daedelus pulls a woodwind ensemble out of retirement and gives them wistful melodies of their forgotten youth to dwell upon. "Quiet Now" is as close to conventional downtempo as Invention gets. Over a lolloping EQ'd rhythm track a processed guitar works counter-rhythms. By contrast, "Perchance a Bit" is John Surman's bass clarinet soundclashing with Jega's electronics. "Soulful of Child" recalls some of Squarepusher's least spastic jazz-n-bass, a style that Daedelus taps more frenetically for "Thus the Whirligig."
Two bonus cuts chart Invention's progression from childhood naivety to savvy maturity. Daedelus invites guest MCs Busdriver and Sach to rhyme over "Quiet Now" and "Pursed Lips Reply." Busdriver's and Sach's stagy delivery and avant-poetry message locate them squarely in Mush/cLOUDDED territory. However, while I appreciate these rhymes on their own, they do squelch the overall mood of the record in this context.
Still, Daedelus' debut album manages to find common ground between 21st century electronics and the string arrangements of yesteryear. He never obscures one with the other, nor allows one to shine through at the other's expense. The disparate elements are in harmony and at the command of Daedelus' personality. It could have gone so horribly wrong. Daedelus could have ventured too far into the mawkish, or equally astray in search of David Lynchian oddity. Invention has very few peers, in my opinion. Though Schlammpeitzinger's Collected Simple Songs of My Temporary Past and Andrew Coleman's Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt come close, I'm firmly resigned that I'll not hear a more effortlessly charming album this year.
