Bespoke

A mostly successful fusion of sonic and sartorial elegance.

In spite of this second half lag, Daedelus continues to exhibit a tremendous capacity for distilling disparate ideas into something personable.

It's a seemingly disparate list, but it's a testament to the producer's abilities that he can craft songs that fit so well with each voice.

Now, he finally has some good music of his own attached to his name. It may or may not be enough to catch up to the rapidly accelerating talents of his younger peers-- but it's certainly a start.

To be a little more complimentary, Bespoke sounds like darkly magnolia-lined city streets, like late afternoon, like crisp hotel beds. Darlington may have tailored the album from existing sonic cloth, but at least this time the seams are a little more skillfully sewn.

Bespoke is a study in contrast, a series of juxtapositions. It’s all about dissonance and musical friction in lieu of harmony and ease. It is not the sum of its parts — it’s about the individual parts themselves.

Occasionally, as on the stuttering, beats-at-war-with-the-tune One And Lonely, it's not so successful, but in the main it's easy to feel both the width and the quality.

Bespoke features a wealth of sounds and guest singers, but Darlington often lacks the glue to hold them together.