The concept of the album is based on an old parlour game of consequences in which players wrote in turn on a sheet of paper, folded it to conceal part of the writing, and then passed it to the next player for a further contribution. French Surrealists used this idea to collect of words or images that are collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse. Daedelus has the assistance of a collection of well-known to less-known musical talents to produce his Exquisite Corpse of 14 tracks. You could say the 'paper' in his game is a 30/40s romantic Hollywood film soundtrack that is used as a backdrop.

This works best on 'Just Briefly' where the opening is cut and spliced before boogiefied love calls of "I just wanna be loved" repeat. It's a love song with confrontational ambiguity of what a love song supposed to sound like.

The album starts with 'Dearly Departed' which a strange introductory interlude before Wire's hip hop album of the year 2004 winner MF Doom hits 'Impending Doom'. Possibly the best exquisite corpse in the collection. Menacingly dark rap with beautiful strings from a different era. 'Move On' includes additional kung-fu sound effects together with romantic flutes in a laid-back Latin vibe to end Side A.

Lara Darling sings the vocals to 'Now & Sleep' -- a lullaby to electro beats but no child will fall asleep when this is played. 'The Crippled Hand' is a longer exploration of similar style with the piano lounge and some big horn arrangement cut ups.

'Welcome Home' sees Mike Ladd rap of buildings and construction sites to a mournful downtempo cut up. The album also includes a rapless Danse Macabre remix of 'Welcome Home' by Prefuse 73.

CYNE gets the rap for 'Drops' before 'Sent Off' gets the 'Just Briefly' treatment start with big orchestral strings and a female operatic style vocal which then merges into a Jogger remix of 'Sus Per Coil' which goes electronic bleepin'. Do you see the folds in the page?

Side 4 kicks off with the double quick bongos of 'Fallen Love', it rattles along and is my second favourite tune of the set. 'The Trains Are Now So Clean' is a short interlude but 'Thanatopsis' is a beatbox duet with acoustic guitar on the beach. Hrishikesh Hirway does the vocals, guitar and drums on this one and I hear what could have been hip hopped-emo-Bright Eyes. Surreal or what? Fittingly, the album ends with Big Dada mates from France, TTC with 'Cadavre Exquis'.

This album can annoy. I admit I didn't get to terms with it easily but give it time and you'll find it exquisite and definitely no corpse.

Reviewed 2xLP Ninja Tune Cat. No. Zen 102

Links
Ninja Tune
www.daedelusdarling.com
Mush

Hectic also recommends
Prefuse 73's Warp 12", 'Hide Ya Face' featuring El-P and Ghostface Killah.
TTC 'De Pauvres Riches' Big Dada