Daedalus

There are quite a few artists working in the area of making new music from jazz samples, but Daedelus manages to pull out ahead of the larger pack. Like a few other like-minded peers (Andrew Pekler, Vladislav Delay), he manages to make something fresh and distinctly his own out of the bits and pieces. The album plays out a little like time travel; early on he pits familiar groove breaks against sources from '30s and '40s recordings full of exotica, romantic flourishes and big band rhythms. As things progress, more and more modern elements creep into the mix, mostly in the form to down-tempo and hip-hop rhythms. What allows Daedelus to unite the disparate sounds and time periods, and what makes the recording more compelling, is his foreground use of electronic elements, such as little glitches, static and subtle machinery sounds. It's a reminder that, yes, this is an artificially created reality; a little peek behind the curtain. The album ends a little unexpectedly with two vocal hip-hop tracks featuring guest MCs Busdriver and Sach, which is perhaps the culmination of the time-trip.