Daedelus

If one were to characterize the fourth full-length from Dadaist beat collagist Daedelus, swooning would be the best summation. Musically Exquisite Corpse drips with aching nostalgia and dustily dips with wistful heartstrings, honeyed woodwinds, and vintage vibraphone, like a Thirties radio play. Guest MCs such as MF Doom, Cyne, and Mike Ladd play atop Daedelus’s filmic flurries of crackly, breezy cutups. Of course the MCs aren’t given the easiest of absurdist arrangements to conquer, resulting in more ticker tape commentary than attention-demanding ciphers. Intermixed are beat-borne ballads and precocious lullabies. Exquisite Corpse is meant to lament the supposed demise of (now-bloated) hip-hop; its mellifluous vignettes may not get ill like most hip-hop, but certainly prove that whimsical production can be healthy for the soul.