With the exception of that hideous Adventure Time album from last year, Daedelus' output since his debut Invention has been smart, consistent, and fittingly, inventive. The L.A. producer is a master of kitsch, mining vinyl for discarded melodies and cross-appropriating them in his quaint but forward-thinking compositions. Daedelus seems to have unusually high regard for his source material, and his samples correspondingly maintain their historical sediment despite his anachronistic dust-off. What results is essentially genreless compositions that are home to a wide range of sounds, musical interests and influences that, while consisting of pieces that might be individually unengaging, together make for challenging and rewarding listening.
Of Snowdonia, like Invention, is extremely dense. Daedelus has chosen samples of a substantially more unified ilk here, and to dizzying effect, he often hurdles through them seven or eight at a time. In addition, Daedelus intrudes upon his samples more: guitar, standard IDM color and drum effects, and even his own voice peek into the mix, hoping to bridge the distance between the sampled fragments and the new audience.
The fast-paced "Snowed In" is Of Snowdonia's de facto standout track. The song is stuffed from beginning to end with typically and atypically Daedelian samples: the opening bouts of heavily reverbed percussion and bell sounds recall Pierre Henry 1960s output, while piano and guitar lines form a common thread that weaves through more familiar clarinet and string tones. Daedelus then gets somewhat campy on "A Sneaking Suspicion", feted with its impenetrably film noir vibe and soap opera saxophone loop. The song turns glitchy and melancholic upon entrance of a grand guitar line, but regains its mystery when the saxophone loop comes back to complete a somewhat forced ring structure.
After "Aim True", Daedelus' sung ode to needlepoint aphorisms, and The Price Is Right game-show dreamscape of "Taking Wing", the album's most upbeat song, "Something Bells", makes good use of a fuzzed-out amateur chorus line. The loop surfaces intermittently until getting its just due midway: "Now's the time to sing and shout/ Something bells can ring about." A guitar loop, bell melody, and this chorus share the spotlight democratically. Closer "Hiraethus" focuses on acoustic piano loop, with which Daedelus vocally harmonizes. It's the album's shortest song, but easily its prettiest.
Yet, while Daedelus succeeds on much of On Snowdonia, some of its tracks suffer from one of two problems. Sometimes these tracks are too reliant on their archaic samples: "Shinkansen", for example, fails to transcend its kitsch, despite being propelled by an energetic drum loop. Other times, as on "Pocket Watch Pulse", Daedelus overcompensates for his anachronisms, miring a track in by-the-book IDM cliches. Still, these are forgivable misgivings for an artist this consistently compelling, and while not up to his best work on Invention, Of Snowdonia nevertheless suggests that Daedelus still has much to offer his genre.
