Daedelus

Born Alfred Weisberg-roberts in Santa Monica, CA, producer/instrumentalist Daedelus wanted to be an inventor from an early age, a sentiment that led to him choosing this artistic moniker (in Greek mythology Daedalus was known as an inventor, although Weisberg-roberts also cites the character Stephan Dedalus in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as well as the ship in the Japanese cartoon Robotech as equally valid reasons for his selection) when he decided to begin releasing his own work. Despite the fact that he was formally trained on double bass and bass clarinet (and also played the guitar and accordion, among other things) and studied jazz at USC, Daedelus chose to go the electronica route, often incorporating samples from the '30s and '40s into his IDM and left-field hip-hop. Though his first single came out in 2001, it wasn't until the following year that his debut full-length, Invention, was released after he signed to Plug Research. Daedelus was a prolific composer, and the next four years brought four new albums (on Plug Research and Mush): 2003's Rethinking The Weather, 2004's Of Snowdonia, 2005's Exquisite Corpse, and 2006's Daedelus Denies The Day's Demise. There have also been countless singles and side projects, including producing The Weather for Mush labelmates Busdriver and Radioinactive in 2003. The musician's engaging live set was finally made available for fans, albeit in limited numbers, with Live At Low End Theory -- recorded during a July 2007 performance at Los Angeles's The Airliner -- coming out in early 2008. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide