After early releases of ‘Hrs:Min:Secs’, ‘Make It So’ and the opening track on the album ‘Fair Weather Friends’, the maverick of sound genres astounds us all with Love To Make Music To.

Is there a theme to this album like Denies The Days Demise, Exquisite Corpse his other six albums? Not that’s immediately obvious to me. We know he got all (re)obsessed with original rave after being introduced to the scene on a trip to these shores when he was 15 (see the Interview HERE that I did with him 2 years ago when this album was “halfway there or just about ready to be completely redone.”) and there’s certainly some ravin’ elements going on. But not so much that this is a rave album, it’s definitely Daedelus.

So what has he done over the past 2 years? Well, he’s got together with some new collaborators. Apart from Michael Johnson (‘Make It So’) there’s N’fa on ‘Twist The Kids’, Paperboy delivers on a couple of tracks (one with Erika Rose who was on Sa-Ra’s The Hollywood Recordings) and Taz ‘Vote Obama’ Arnold plus his Sa-Ra cohort, Om’mas Keith.

Even if this album is dedicated to early 90s rave, it’s incredibly brilliant how he mixes up all his influences; often in a clash style like crunk vs. line dancing or latin vs. classical piano. Only the creative genius that is Daedelus can pull this off. Top tracks at the moment are ‘Twist The Kids’, ‘Get Off Your HiHats’, ‘Only For The Heartstrings’ and all the singles.

That said none of the 15 tracks are duff; Taz and Paperboy get dirty on ‘Touchtone’, the beautiful semi-vocodered ‘I Car(ry) Us’ gets us romantic with our [electro]girl and ‘I Took Two’ sounds like a dubstep rave of a 70s pop tune. And talking ‘pop’, ‘My Beau’ should be a proper hit. Daedelus takes us to places/times we’ve never been to before; except ‘You’re The One’ is a return to the Picture House style of Equisite Corpse and if Charlie Chaplin was a avant-electronic musician today, he’d have come up with ‘Assembly Lines’ and ‘Drummery Jam’. House!

The album ends with a track featuring Laura Darlington, the woman that he loves to love making music with; aka Mrs Darling, his wife. Even better than that, there’s news of the pair with their own album comng out as The Long Lost. If it’s as good as ‘If We Should’, I love it already.

Hard to believe this is Daedelus’ ninth album but this is the first exclusive release on Ninja Tune. They know what they’re doing as he justs get better and better! He loves makin’ ‘em and we love him for it. Rave on and make love to Daedelus’ music!

Album launch 17th July @ Amersham Arms, London & Daedelus will be at Big Chill Festival in August.

Reviewed: Daedelus - Love To Make Music To (Ninja Tune) Cat. No. ZENCD 142 Released: 13th June 2008
Tracklisting:
1 Fair Weather Friends (3:06)
2 Make It So featuring Michael Johnson (3:55)
3 Twist The Kids featuring N’fa (4:00)
4 Get Off Your HiHats (4:53)
5 Hrs:Mins:Secs (3:37)
6 Touchtone featuring Taz & Paperboy (3:30)
7 I Car(ry) Us (3:31)
8 I Took Two (3:24)
9 My Beau featuring Erika Rose & Paperboy (3:08)
10 You’re The One featuring Om’mas Keith (3:42)
11 Assembly Lines (3:34)
12 Drummery Jam (4:00)
13 Only For The Heartstrings (3:18)
14 Bass In It featuring Taz (3:16)
15 If We Should featuring Laura Darlington (4:11)

Links
www.daedelusdarling.com
www.myspace.com/daedelusdarling
www.ninjatune.net
www.nfamusic.net
www.sa-ra.net
www.myspace.com/saramusic
Gilles Peterson :: 19th June :: Jack Splash of Plantlife in Conversation
Erika Rose - ‘Black Gold’ (Infinity Le Monde)
www.myspace.com/erikarosegarden
9th July 2008 O2, London - Erika Rose performing for Alicia Keys “AS I AM” World Tour 2008