The moniker of one Alfred Darlington, Daedelus has been a fixture in both the electronica and underground hip-hop communities for over 20 years. They’ve released more than 30 albums and EPs, collaborated with the likes of Busdriver, Madlib, MF Doom and Mike Ladd, and they’ve also done remixes of songs by artists such as Bilal, Open Mike Eagle, DJ Shadow, Saul Williams, Death Cab For Cutie and Daft Punk.
Darlington originally forged their musical output in Los Angeles, but these days they’ve been based in Providence while teaching at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Now, they’re going to be heading up Route 146 to be part of a stacked bill at 8 p.m. Jan. 21 at Electric Haze in Worcester. Minneapolis electronic artist Shrimpnose will be headlining the show with Lzrd Ppl and Vague003 also performing.
Before venturing into electronica and hip-hop, Darlington studied jazz and double bass at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. Being part of a unique community at the time was a mind-opening experience for the artist, which in turn influenced them to discover their musical freedom behind a set of turntables.
“It’s a little bit of a conflicted spirit,” Darlington says about shifting from jazz to electronica and hip hop. “I love music, I was fostered by the public schooling system in Los Angeles and I really benefited from early instrument exposure. Along with double bass, I was also playing bass clarinet at the time and I saw these possibilities that were involved while equally discovering the electronica scene in L.A. There were also things like the city’s radio push towards hip hop and gangster rap and if you went even deeper below the surface you had things like Freestyle Fellowship and the whole Good Life scene, which maybe is a little too into the weeds for those who aren’t totally in the knowledge of hip hop, but it was a very influential movement in the ‘90s. I was very much a beneficiary of that, but I really thought that instrumental playing was the way forward, to be quite frank.
“It seemed like the dutiful thing to do if you wanted to pursue a life in music is that you had to be on an instrument as much as you can,” they say. “I was hearing all of these wild sounds on the radio and on records, but I didn’t see a way forward in it until the ‘90s in that music scene. Through studying jazz, I felt that there would be more freedom involved and even more of a possibility to create that lane I was so eager for. Truth be told though, at least in my studies of jazz, I saw some patterns happening, maybe it was also the era of that music. It’s a very freeform jazz scene now and you have these incredible players who are getting a lot of attention.”
Through making this artistic change, Darlington did find similarities between jazz and electronic music. At the same time, the major driving force for this change was the need to find a style of music that catered to the creative freedom they were looking for.
“It’s the kind of thing too where jazz has always been an incredibly forward-thinking genre, but there’s something about the ‘90s coming out of the ‘80s with the easy jazz movement that made me a little disenfranchised,” Darlington says. “Basically, I had to pivot in my schooling to continue to find that freedom and electronic music provided it. It’s an incredible deluge of freedom, sometimes too much.
When it comes to their prolific output, Darlington’s enthusiasm for the craft of making music has never wavered. They feel that every record they make is an artistic proclamation and that there’s always limits that can be pushed along with being reinvisioned.
“Partially, it’s that same kind of unlimited feeling and the wondrousness that happens around the music,” they say. “As much as you feel like you are doing something, in reflection and in hindsight, you’re just pushing around the blocks and forming what seems to be significant sounds. Next thing you know, there’s a new set of inspirations and inspiring figures that come along and you just kind of beg for more. As much as every record feels like a definitive statement, equally because of collaboration or these bright lights that come onto the scene, you can redraw the boundaries and forge ahead with something new. I keep on coming back to that well while looking for the same sense of magic and thankfully it hasn’t left me quite yet.”
“I still feel very involved and moved,” Darlington adds. “Even if I have changed locations, I still feel like there’s this abundance that I’m constantly looking and listening out for.”
Darlington’s collaboration with the late underground hip hop legend MF Doom, who passed away in 2020, started through one of their tracks being sampled for an album Doom was involved in. Eventually, they both worked in a recording studio together as part of the sessions for Daedelus’ 2005 album “Exquisite Corpse” and that experience still brings vivid memories for Darlington to this day.
“It was absolutely incredible,” they say about working with MF Doom. “One of my biggest life-changing moments was collaborating in the most strange way with Madlib and MF Doom for the ‘Madvillainy’ record. They sampled my song ‘Experience’ for their song ‘Accordion’ and that afforded me the experience of being able to tour with Madlib as well as J Dilla and MF Doom. In doing so, I was able to forge a little bit of a relationship with MF Doom and his manager at the time, or one of his managers. He’s a shadowy figure for a reason, and at the time I found it so precious and strange.
“Now after hearing so many details about his life and his past, I think it kind of tracks as a trend in his career in all kinds of strange ways,” Darlington adds. “In part, it did afford me the opportunity to get a studio before the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ record dropped and I remember it so clearly. It was a hot California summer day and such a strange moment in time, I won’t go into all the details but the opportunity to be with such a storied figure in the prime of his powers, I was so grateful to get 16 bars from him. If you’re familiar with hip hop, oftentimes it’s counted in bars and usually full songs consist between 32 and 64 of them and he gave me 16, which I’m forever grateful for.”
After that session, Darlington and MF Doom kept in touch but then after Doom moved back to his native England they didn’t communicate with each other as often. This year also marks 20 years since the release of “Madvillainy” when March 23 shows up on the calendar.
“It took a lot of tooth-pulling to get there, but it cemented our relationship,” they mention. “Over the years, we stayed somewhat in touch and then during the last 10 years or so, we were out of touch due to him moving out of the country but it was such a huge opportunity. That song “Accordion” keeps on coming up in my life. I’ve seen people cover it and I’ve seen younger artists discover it through the ‘Madvillainy’ record, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Once again, I feel l’m cresting on these waves.”
As mentioned earlier, Darlington has been part of the faculty at the Berklee College of Music since 2019 within the institution’s Electronic Production and Design Department. Along with teaching students, they use their passion for performance to convey it through lessons and workshops.
“Berklee had been petitioning for a long time to do this very revolutionary thing,” they say about how they got the teaching position. “Obviously, Berklee is a very forward-thinking school and one of the first schools to teach rock & roll in a variety of ways along with other popular music styles. In 2019, they began to unveil this notion of having the computer be an instrument and the producer also being a performer in the way that they think of performance. They found the ‘Electronic Digital Instrument Program’ and I’m grateful that I was selected to be part of the founding faculty. I’m so drawn to electronic music and performance as well as turntablism and hip-hop.
“I believe that these are pillars that form the sound and create the aesthetics that we lean towards in our productions and stuff as well as how the audience is experiencing music that’s meant to be loud and in-person,” Darlington adds. “Of course, it could have been something as simple as telling people to play scales on their computerized keyboards or digital outputs, but the music begs for a little bit more than that. It’s really been a delight to get involved in it and the reason why it came to pass is that for years I’ve had these parallel paths with releasing records, but also performance has been so key to my career. The ability to travel to places where you may not share a common language or even around the aesthetics of how the music is enjoyed, but a BPM and a really good club soundsystem can really unify an audience. I’m completely beholden to that.”
For the upcoming show at Electric Haze, Darlington is very excited. They’re looking forward to experiencing the venue’s vibe and atmosphere while contributing to the show in a cohesive manner.
“I love the fact that I’m the local opener,” They say about the show. “Even though I’m a little further away and I have some years under my belt, I’m kind of like the New Englander in the mix. I live in Providence and as much as I teach in Boston, I like to think that New England is now my home and community. As a local opener, I want to do the things that you’re supposed to do. I want to play nice for the headliner, which is Shrimpnose in this case, and I want to be able to reinforce and reinvigorate the kind of moves that he’s going to be making.”
“I want to give him the platform and opportunity to really run,” Darlington adds. “I have a small notion of what he might be doing based on his current music, he’s a great soundsmith and visionary. It’s the kind of thing where usually it takes on the form of being kind of mellower, almost lo-fi adjacent bass-focused sounds. I’m going to probably do a bit of the same with a bit of a hip hop dressing. I might get a little more loud with it with high BPMs and just in general, try to really create a mood that can be ebullient for the whole night. I know Electric Haze has a good sound system and I’ve heard really good things about the scene there, so I’m really excited to take part and experience it first hand.”
Shrimpnose, Daedelus, Lzrd Ppl and Vague003
When: 8 p.m. Jan. 21
Where: Electric Haze, 26 Millbury St., Worcester
How much: $12
