Daedelus - 'Fair Weather Friends'

With a musical sound that sounds like a cross between every genre of dance music ever - even the one you hide beneath your decks at home, reviewing Daedelus was never going to be easy. However, the pattern of this EP does follow an interesting curve that basically falls into two categories.

The first category is a lesson in why not to put vocals on a dance track. And like countless DJ’s before him Daedelus fails spectacularly in this department with two unspeakably bad vocals on tracks one and two that are simply not worth mentioning, they are that bad. Category two is improvement, which starts as soon as we hit the opening bars of ‘Hermitage’ which features a catchy electro squelch that sickens you to delight and combines nicely with the driving bass and warbles that Daedelus continues to drop throughout. ‘El Subidon’ is stripped back trance that is minimal enough to be progressive without straying near the dangerous vocal territory.

Like most DJ’s though, Daedelus saves his best for last with the superb ‘Bonjour’ with the title track sung peacefully back to the listener by a distant choir on top of a climbing Kraftwerk-esque sample that says goodbye in style. Overall, despite some suicidal moments this is intelligent dance music that pushes boundaries to an extent and therefore warrants a listen.

Released 08/10/07 on Ninja Tune.