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| Pitchfork |
 L.A.-based beatmaker Alfred Darlington has spent most of the past decade churning out poly-genre electronic music, sometimes seeming to favor quantity over quality. On the rare occasion when he gives an idea the time to develop, he too often suffocates it by packing too much in. Even his best work, 2003's outré-rap collaboration with Busdriver and Radioinactive, The Weather, was tainted by his weaker re-work, Rethinking the Weather.Still, despite Darlington's discography, it isn't unreasonable to at least expect a slight uptick in quality from Righteous Fists of Harmony, his new EP for Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, which is being put out as a prelude to a full-length for Ninja Tune later this year. There's no better time than now for Darlington to redefine his reputation as an artist, especially in a scene where his peers (FlyLo, Dâm-Funk, Gaslamp Killer) are establishing more fully realized styles and developing a higher profile. It turns out that a slight uptick in quality is exactly what Righteous Fists of Harmony delivers. It opens with a six-minute piece pitting minor-key drone against boilerplate glitch-hop, and it closes with a bit of soundtrack schmaltz; sandwiched between are takes on color-bled balladry, blunted electronica, and Brazilian-inflected lounge, with little apparent regard to sequencing. Even though it has just eight tracks and runs a little over 26 minutes, it's still a mess...full text |
| Drownedinsound |
| All compositions are essentially conceptual. Whether we’re talking about Raw Power, Illmatic - even Beethoven’s 5th - all music is inspired by the environment, the circumstances and generally whatever’s gone in one of the artist’s ears and swirled around inside before heading out of the other. In the case of Righteous Fists of Harmony, it’s fair to say that its creator has been spending quite some time hitting the history books in active search of his ‘concept’. That’s because the title of electronica polymath and leftfield beatmaker Daedelus’ latest mini album, released on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint, is a translation of the name of the Chinese rebel movement more commonly known as The Boxers. Those expecting washes of opium smoke and 1898 mysticism, however. should be advised that this doesn’t exactly do what it says on the tin. Granted, we have the ebbing and flowing ‘An Armada Approaches’ which hums with the menace of an oncoming imperial navy, but overall, it’s difficult to detect any obvious and tangible historical influence on Daedelus, aside from the cryptic song titles and lyrics. Of course, we shouldn’t have expected anything so simple given Daedelus’ reputation. Whether crafting beats for oddball rapper Busdriver or melding wobbly grooves to clattering percussion and the occasional thrashing string section on his last full length Love To Make Music To, he’s rarely towed the metaphorical line. This time, he’s gone all out neo-classical. Whether building a beat from handclaps and oboes (‘Succumbing To’), or expanding deadened timpani thud and mariachi riff into the squealing free jazz of ‘The Finishing of A Thing’, this a surprising record, even given the self described ‘neo-Victorian’ producer’s history. Which is all well and good, but when compared to the producer’s other work, Righteous Fists of Harmony lacks something of an edge. There’s no doubt that it’s a bold record, which is what makes it all the more sad that it’s hard to shake the tag of coffee table from many of the compositions: breathy vocals and drifting guitars all too often fading into the background (‘Order of The Golden Dawn’). It doesn’t help that many of the tracks feel like they’re building towards something somewhat more grandiose and eloquent, only to fade into insignificance: the title of ‘Stampede Me’ can only be assumed to be ironic given the nature of the track. What is most disappointing is that for a clearly identified ‘concept’ album, Righteous Fists of Harmony feels very much disjointed: there’s a unity of theme throughout, but the tracks never ebb and flow into each other in the way the listener might hope....full text |
| Residentadvisor |
| Daedelus is nothing if not frustrating. The dandyish Californian has found his genius in a mind-boggling range of different styles, proving that there need not be any demarcation between saccharine storybook strings, leftfield hip-hop, experimental electronics and romantic dream-folk duets with his muse wife Laura Darling. More often than not, though, his full-lengths have limped over the finish line, weighed down by a commitment to unbridled weirdness and heavy conceptualism, resulting in albums creaking with too many competing musical ideas. An early supporter of hip-hop reconstructionist Flying Lotus prior to his Warp association, Daedelus has been inducted into the producer's Brainfeeder fold somewhat ironically for a project which sees him shed every trace of his alt hip-hop past. An album masquerading as an eight track EP, Righteous Fists of Harmony refers in name to the 19th century band of Boxer Rebellion resistance fighters, whose faith in their own supposed magical powers sealed their doomed fate. Thankfully, the melodrama of the concept contributes a somber tone that only serves to ground Daedelus' usual flights of fancy. "An Amarda Approaches" begins as a march to the grave accompanied by analog synths before slowing to half time and mutating into a strange and dreamlike chorus of distorted guitars, oboes, strings and a beat so elongated that it disintegrates into thousands of powdery particles. Maintaining a time-distorted fever dream state, "The Open Hand Avows" hinges on a 78-at-33 beat, its parts moving like a huge and lumbering piece of machinery, pistons slowed to a crawl, punctuated by a labouring, gasping pressure valve....full text |
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