Sweet scientist

Daedelus lets love link his licks and loops

ALCHEMICAL BROTHER: Daedelus

For all the heaps of instruments and devices at his disposal, the most important tool of Los Angeles music-maker Alfred Darlington, aka Ninja Tune signee Daedelus, is love. Sorry if that sounds corny, but think about it—what has a better track record of harmoniously dovetailing the incongruous, of begetting the oddest bed-fellowships? And Daedelus, who’ll happily work a jackhammer breakcore set while dandified in Victorian attire, delights in inspired incongruities. With a farsighted and, as you’ll see, charitable sense of what sounds work where, Daedelus concocts jams as kickass as they are kissy-face. His latest, Love To Make Music To, revisits some ostensibly obsolete tropes of the early rave era (and much else besides), and refashions them into fresh, fun finery. The Mirror reached Daedelus by email.

Mirror: When we were talking recently, the topic of gabber, of hardcore Euro techno, came up. You remarked that the trick is to figure out how to get the romance in there. Would you say that’s your defining intention, as an artist who does draw on such a diversity of musical styles?

Daedelus: It is a sweet science—some might say pseudo. But much like paraphrase theory and crossing one’s eyes for long enough, the slightest sights and sounds can have long-ranging and incredible impact, and much like alchemy, anything can be transmuted by this virtue into anything else, like lead into gold, or better still, gabber into swoon-y love tunes.

M: Love To Make Music To, while not a series of overt pastiches, does reference a variety of styles that, in dance music’s constant turnover of what’s cool, have quickly become forgotten or denigrated.

D: Trying to hold onto sound isn’t dissimilar from clutching water—the hand gets wet and the sensation remains but really, no water gets gripped. Why not celebrate this effect, rather the throw our bodies against it?

M: You told XLR8R that your approach on this album was “letting the music play by itself”—in the sense of a child’s playtime, rather than a player piano, I would imagine. Could you explain that a bit?

D: Both in production and performance at its best, the music will go its own way. I find that when you burden the whole creation with tons of self-imposition, that’s when things get tiresome and dulling. So trying to cheat the polygraph isn’t as fun as just not knowing in the first place.

M: You also mentioned to them that your most resonant songs, such as “Fair Weather Friends”—one of this year’s funnest tunes, by the way—are the ones that come together quickest and most intuitively. Then again, over-thinking things is something you claim to take a certain perverse pleasure in. Is gut instinct an acquired faculty for you?

D: I learned from a great jazz player long ago that we only practice to reduce mistakes.

M: Apparently you’re bolting for China right after your Montreal gig. What’s up in China?

D: That’s why I’m going, a fact-finding mission of clichés. What will work there? Will Miami bass work in Shanghai? Will the cinematic? Will rave? I might be on a flight to some wonderful failure.

WITH GHISLAIN POIRIER & FACE-T,
BONOBO, MOONSTAR, LUV AND
TASHISH AT PIKNIC ÉLECTRONIK, AT
PARC JEAN-DRAPEAU’S PLACE DE
L’HOMME, ON SUNDAY, SEPT. 21, 2 P.M.,
$10 ($5 BEFORE 3:30 P.M.), ALL AGES