Daedelus, No Sir E, and Caloric

While Alfred Darlington was a musical child through and through, picking up an astonishing number of instruments and getting trained in them for both classical and jazz styles, it wasn't until the age of 15 that he discovered the music that spoke to him personally. It was while staying at a YMCA in London, England that he turned the radio on, flipped through the channels and stumbled across the kind of rave and hardcore electronica that the UK scene was producing, and to this day, Darlington calls that discovery the “Eureka!” moment of his life. After he came back to the United States he took up Djing, inspired by the most leftfield drum and bass sounds that he could find, and took up the stage name Daedelus as a tribute to his childhood love of inventors.

By 1999 he had started dropping his own productions into his DJ sets, and one of these tracks impressed fellow DJ Carlos Nino so much that he introduced him to people involved with the Los Angeles based record label Plug Research. The label signed Darlington up and his debut album as Daedelus “Invention” was released in 2002. Ever since then, he's remained one of the most acclaimed and unusual figures in modern electronica, one who's made records with kindred spirits like MF Doom, Tunng and Boom Bip. He's also remained one of the most consistent acts of his time, at his peak releasing dive studio albums across 2003 and 2004. He remains as acclaimed as ever to this day for both his records and his DJ sets, and because we won't see the likes of him again for a very long time, he comes highly recommended.