Daedalus
The Exquisite Corpse
Ninja Tune

Alfred Daedalus returns on Ninja Tune records. We open with "Dearly Departed". The intro reminds me of going to Mr. Rogers' land of make-believe. Jazz-y Rhodes chords bring us to a sample of Sheena Easton's "I Will Say Goodbye". This instrumental track is an understated way to open the record. "Impending Doom" features Mr. MF DOOM, but we stay painfully understated again, at only 2:17. "Just Briefly" is an interesting enough instrumental track that retains that familiar sound this album tries to use to counter understatements. "Move on" features Set. This is a potentially great song that just isn't allowed to develop. "Now and Sleep" is another instrumental that combines incongruous samples into a hodgepodge of what's become a pretty-boring-actually instrumental sound on the album.

"The Crippled Hand" is over 6 minutes of Daedalus' now uninteresting dead-beat instrumentals. The Prefuse 73 track, "Welcome Home" is good work from him, and probably the best cut on the record, but in the context of Exquisite Corpse I couldn't care less about the song. The title track, "Cadavre Exquis", attemps to wile out, but falls flat after the rest of this disappointing album.

Copyright © 2005 Eugene Ward