 Alfred Darlington isn’t your average cookie-cutter musician. From how he looks (early Victorian Dandyism), to how he makes music, to how he expresses himself and views the world, his is a very individual, and bespoke outlook. Alfred was musical from very early on, as a child he was classically and jazz-trained in a number of instruments, but his interests were broad and varied– less a prodigy than a renaissance boy whose obsessions ranged from Greek legends to the mountains of Wales. As a 15 year old he finally persuaded his parents to take him to the Principality. Whilst in a YMCA in London he flipped the radio dial, found a pirate radio station and taped into some UK rave and hardcore. “It was my first ‘Eureka!’ moment in music,” he says.
Back in the US he joined local rock bands, jazz bands and ska bands, which he enjoyed but felt limited by. At home he was listening to Warp, Ninja and harder electronic stuff. He started DJing out the more leftfield side of drum and bass and making his own rudimentary productions. They were meant to be drum & bass but they kept turning out different and from his outsider’s experiments his own style was born. He chose the name Daedelus as he had a childhood obsession with invention, and what was he doing, after all, if not tinkering and fiddling and experimenting like the “gentleman inventors” of old? In 1999 he started DJing on Dublab.com for his "Entropy Sessions" and began dropping in his own early demo productions.
In 2003, he was booked to play a show in San Diego by Brian Crabtree and Peter Siegerstrong and they asked him to test out an early prototype of the Monome box. "It’s a Non-traditional electronic instrument,” Daedelus explains. “Basically it allows for massive improvisation." Since then Daedelus has continued to use this revolutionary box, bringing much genuine liveness to the sometimes static world of performed electronic/dance music.
In 2003 he did "The Weather" album with Busdriver and Radioinactive and the remix album "Rethinking the Weather" on Mush records (home of cLOUDDEAD, also on Big Dada/Ninja Tune). 2004 saw the release of "Of Snowdonia" on Plug Research, the album with which Daedelus says he first “felt true artistic confidence, finding a true voice. I was finally in the right zone.”
There was certainly no let up in his creativity. Also in 2004 he released the concept album “A Gent Agent” on tiny German label Laboratory Instinct. The 2005 album "Exquisite Corpse" on Mush album featured the likes of TTC, Mike Ladd, MF Doom. Ninja signed Daedelus for UK/Europe (a relationship which has reached its full expression on “Love To Make Music To,” his first album for the label worldwide and put together with the help of their team). In 2006 “Denies the Days Demise” came out, a record showcasing his love of Brazilian music. Last year he released his first live album, “Live At the Low End Theory,” and “The Fairweather Friends EP”. Later this year will see the release of his collaboration with his wife, Laura Darling, as "Long Lost"!
And while his reputation has grown internationally, his place in the LA scene has also solidified. The musician that many of the hottest names in the city turn to for everything from bass clarinet licks to advice on obscure electronics.
June 1st 2009
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