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Since the release of his debut album in 2002, Alfred Darlington aka Daedelus has been amazing and confounding listeners with his experimental and ever-changing psychedelic hip hop. His latest album, 'Love To Make Music To' is released by Ninja Tune on 9 Jun. An homage to late 90s UK rave culture, the album is his most accessible to date and is sure to have you up and dancing before you know what hit you. |
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I am a failed inventor. Well, more accurately, I romanticized the idea of creation until it would have been nigh impossible. Then discovered
how music can create amazing things between people, so I nursed that inspiration onward. You can as a composer practically invent emotions
an audience hadn't previously thought about, this is intoxicating. So I've been pursuing that for a minute before renewing my original
efforts.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
My forthcoming is 'Love To Make Music To'. It is more a question than an easy answer. I was thinking about how odd it is to be a hip hop
producer obsessed with rave music, denying myself the chance to dance a little... So, I've given in a bit and tried to make my little up tempo
opus. Oh, and it also has a running theme about an imaginary evening that chances on a warehouse event, falls in love, the usual stuff...
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Fresh in front of production equipment, the mind races, there are simply too many options in the modern music mode. So I usually begin
by throwing out half the work I did from yesterday and try to get at whatever made it right in the first place. Paint the walls back up,
spruce up the surroundings, and then sleep on it until the next days cullings.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
For me it goes visual artists, architects, fashion fesigners, then musicians and composers, historians, perhaps sculptors and potters,
and somewhere down the road milliners and cobblers. As for artists themselves Joseph Cornell, Man Rey, Beau Brummell, Charles Mingus, and
also Acen.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
If at all possible, maybe like the directions on shampoo; apply, rinse, repeat. I know that once through is difficult, no matter who's
music it is.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
The hard and fast rules of once major labels are ebbing away. We are on the cusp of strange proceedings were the music could be will be
available everywhere, but without such distinct voices. I hope we can preserve our differences and celebrate what makes us all outcasts at
time, discovering each other like rare isotopes...
published may 2008
