FunkFreak75 A great, amazingly well-produced Canterbury-oriented jazz album. (from my 9/22/13 review on PA:) Presdoug is right: This is an album that deserves much more attention and recognition than it has (thus far) received. The other reviewers aptly cover the comparable bands though some of the uses of electronics reminds me of a less-avant DEODATO, too. Everyone seems to want to give Soft Machine or Weather Report credit for the style and sound of this band, but I think this group has far superior planning and less jamming, plus the instrumentation sounds are often quite different (the keys' sounds are much more diverse than Ratledge, more strings-oriented than Zawinal & Co.) Also, the guitarist sounds much more "straightforward" jazz, not at all like John McLaughlin (to me). I love the combination of the Coltrane, Freddy Hubbard/Chick Corea and Eumir Deodato feel of "C.T. 6" and the beautiful "Leda" and "Brilla." Side 2 definitely feels more jazz-oriented than Canterbury or Avant/RIO to me.

1. "Santiago" (9:13) driven by a great bass line and some solid rhythmic support from keys and drums, the sax and electric cello get most of the solos on this long, very well produced jam. The spacey electric cello begins a solo in the middle of the song, allowing Fiorenzo Bonansone the chance to display the experimental use of the echo and sustain effects he's plugged into. This solo plays out for the remainder of the song--about five minutes worth. Reminiscent of some of the electronic sound experiments released on albums by CHICAGO, PINK FLOYD, or JEAN-LUC PONTY. (17.75/20)

2. "Leda" (4:30) an unexceptional first half yields to an amazing second half with simply stunning work from the Fender Rhodes. (8.75/10)

3. "Conn" (3:48) an oddly discontiguous intro opens this one for the first minute before a fully formed jazz tune is spliced in and played out for the next two-and-a-half minutes. (8.5/10)

4. "C.T.6" (14:02) the truest jazz song on the album, this one could have come straight from an RTF or Freddy Hubbard album. There are several sections, each with their own groove, pacing, melodic structure, and familiarity, from flourishes of John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Deodato, and Herbie Hancock. Nice Jerry Goodman-like play from the electric cello in the tenth minute. Not a prog song, this is an excellent jazz song, filled totally with jazz solos, jazz scales, and jazz drumming. (28/30)

5. "Brilla" (5:39) drums, bass, and beautiful Fender Rhodes play support to a gorgeous and sensitive solo saxophone in the lead . . . for the first 1:23. Then things stop, change directions, pick up speed, and shift into electric cello and fast-walking bass mode. Lead instrument switches to electric guitar and then back and forth, sometimes together, until 4:45 when we turn back onto a Coltrane-like sax-led "easy street," familiar to us from the opening section. (9/10)

Total Time: 37:12

For now I'll give it four stars--especially as I'm not sure how "proggy" this is--despite the avant use of space, electrified strings, and diverse keyboard sounds. Maybe further familiarity will cause it to climb to masterpiece status. I will add that it has incredible engineering/production for its time!

It is quite remarkable how narrow the window of productivity was for the artists of this amazing nation and yet how bright these stars shine. Also of interest to me is how these artists most typically produced only one, maybe two, album forays into the "experimental" fad that was progressive rock--again, a testament to how small the window of "popularity" this musical movement had. As a matter of fact, only five of the bands recognized in this list of masterpieces from the "classic" RPI period of 1971-1975 had more than two albums under consideration (PFM, Le Orme, Banco, Area, and Oliver/Cherry Five/Goblin).

B+/4.5 stars; a of jazz-rock fusion.

Igor91 The following is a review that I originally published on the sister website of Jazz Music Archives, Progarchives, on 12/27/16:

Dedalus' stellar self-titled debut is a prime example of 70's jazz rock experimentation at its finest. All members are excellent musicians, displaying a knack for mixing jazz, funk, rock, and a touch of avant-garde, laced with psychedelia. I won't go into the deatils of very track, but I'll go over a couple high points. The opening number, "Santiago," displays the band's versatility by injecting a psychedelic space-out section that reminds me of Jimmy Page using the bow on his guitar for Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused", although I believe Dedalus is using an electrified cello in this section. The track "CT 6" has one of the coolest jazz rock grooves I have ever heard, and I wouldn't be surprised if some hip hop artist has sampled it already. The album must really be heard by anyone interested in experimental jazz rock from the 70's. The band would go off the deep end for their follow up, "Materiale Per Tre Esecutori E Nastro Magnetico," which is also included on my CD copy, and I won't go into that here. Anyway, Dedalus' debut is essential listening for jazz rock aficionados. 5 stars!

siLLy puPPy Well one thing is for sure. DEDALUS showed on their debut album that they were certainly open-minded and willing to take risks and experiment but absolutely no one, especially the jazz-rock-fusion fans of their debut could have seen this one coming. For some reason, DEDALUS decided it was time to move on after one album of primo jazz-fusion workouts and go to even stranger pastures. In this case they took on a real career killer and tackled musique concrète and pointillistic surrealism. The result is an album that gets almost universally panned for it sounds absolutely nothing like the debut and i can only imagine how many jazz-fusion lovers over the years have fallen for the debut only to scratch their heads after listening to this one! Part of the situation was that the bassist Furio De Castri parted ways after the debut. Instead of the sensible decision of replacing him, the remaining four members decided to let their freak flag unfurl full staff and really go for it in the experimental department which pretty much destroyed all momentum they had built and pretty much ended their musical credibility. Instead of syncopated jazz rhythms mixed with solo tradeoffs and spaced out freak outs, we get a series of clanging cans, breaking bottles, piano sweeps and various other noises such as cats meowing, operatic meanderings and whacked out outbursts. There are still traces of jazz here and there with drum rolls, sax runs and even violins but they appear sporadically. There are also scant outbursts of melodies that are fleeting but nonetheless present themselves.

For anyone to enjoy this they must really have had some exposure to some of the avant- garde music of the 50s and 60s. There reminds me a lot of John Cage and his surrealist musical vision and the strange musique concrète of Edgar Varèse but most of all i get a Karlheinz Stockhausen vibe whose pointillistic musical impressionism is the main focus here. Like a good impressionalist painter, DEDALUS paints sonic textures with bloops and bleeps and scant traces of an underlying motif. I like to think of this in general as a ride in a canoe with the chaotic swirls and eddys of water that surround the canoe as the main focus that lead to an underlying object but only as indirect evidence that has to be mounted to come to the final conclusion.

Yes, this is ridiculously convoluted and complex and most listeners will not give this the time of day, but i personally find this kind of music stimulating on rare occasions. I think of this as the musical equivalent to those rare nutrients that the body needs like molybdenum that are only needed in the smallest of doses but yet are essential for the overall health of an organism. There is something about listening to this on the rare occasion that is kind of like defragging your computer. It just kind of makes melodic music sound better! Maybe i'm just a disturbed individual for finding any joy in this whatsoever, but being familiar with the avant-garde classical artists that preceded has aided in my understanding. Admittedly, WTF were these guys thinking?!!! This pretty much ended a promising career and they should have at least put out a couple more stellar jazz-fusion releases before doing anything this alienating to their fans.

As a litmus test you can ask yourself if you can tolerate Area's "Caos" from Maledetti and if the answer is yes, then you can take that track and make a whole album out of it and it will give you a hint of what's going on here. I certainly wouldn't call this essential but this certainly is more than random noise going on. Like the invisible canoe on the flowing stream that creates wakes and hydrologic distortions, this music is the impression of an underlying unheard musical structure that demands your full attention and multiple listens to discern. There are occasional classical motifs that just briefly bubble up from the underworld. This album is tacked on to the end of remastered versions of the debut album. It may not be essential but is well worth it if it's a freebie and can satisfy one's utmost strangest musical urges when the mood hits, at least it does for yours truly.

siLLy puPPy Just who are those four dudes hiding behind the clocks on the album cover? Must be DEDALUS! This band emerged from the Turin, Italy scene in the early 70s and delivers some of the most varied and interesting jazz-fusion from the era on their eponymous debut album. The name DEDALUS apparently comes from Daedalus who was the inventor of the labyrinth in Greek mythology. Like their namesake, this band delivers a labyrinth of extremely well-crafted jazz- fusion that holds up well after many decades. This was another good find for the short-lived Trident Records which also hosted some other greats like Semiramis and Biglietto per l'Inferno. There was another folk rock band with the same name from Italy just to confuse everyone!

This album is really a brilliant concoction of steaming jazz-fusion laced with healthy doses of space rock. In fact at times they drop the jazz-rock all together and venture into Krautrock territory. This is an all instrumental album that finds Fiorenzo Michele Bonansone (keyboards, cello, vocals), Marco Di Castri (guitar, sax), Furio Di Castri (bass) and Enrico Grosso (drums) synergizing their energetic and eclectic talents to create a nice mix of styles that takes a little from the jazziest sounds of the Soft Machine and mixes in some highly eclectic avant-garde jazz, psychedelic freak outs and energetic solos. The sound despite the tempo is always warm and inviting and can range from frantic Mahavishnu Orchestra type workouts to subdued Weather Report passages.

This one has really been a grower. Although i liked it a lot upon first listen, it has managed to burrow deep into my psyche. It just incorporates enough diversity and technical prowess to keep me thoroughly entertained upon repeated listens. If dreamy syncopated rhythms with tasty solos and tight group interaction is what you're craving in your jazz-fusion experience then you should look no further than this debut album by DEDALUS. This delivers for both jazz lovers and progressive rock lovers alike. Unfortunately they would never release another album like this again and moved into even more experimental musique concrète for their second release. If you have one of the newer remastered versions of this you will find the second album tacked onto the end. In my case it's not even listed as being on the album. It's just a surprise!

aglasshouse Ever imagine a universe where Icarus didn't fly too close to the sun? Well, obviously he would have gone on to form a wonderful little jazz band named after his beloved father, Daedalus. Somewhere along the way he forgot the 'a' in his name, most likely due to the one too many ouzos he'd downed the night before in the name of celebration.

Anyhow, this little obscure gem of a group comes from the wonderful country of Italy. They released their first album in 1973, and it was their only album featuring their complete original quartet, as their bassist Furio Di Castri departed after it was released. The album, self-titled Dedalus, is a cool combination of the free-jazz style of Chick Corea and the slightly avant- garde nature of Mahavishnu Orchestra, if I were to put juxtapose it with it's bedfellows. Much of the album is surprisingly spacey, but in the kind of way that cool jazz can just be so....'out there' at times. The best of examples of this being the two epics 'C.T. 6' and 'Santiago' (the latter being the superior in my opinion).

A glaring problem that becomes rather annoying after a few listens through is the incessant noodling that goes on (generally) towards the latter half of the song. It's not the worst avant-garde elements they could have mixed in but it does tend to ruin the atmosphere they so easily crafted. If I were to compare it to something I would say pre-Kraftwerk Organisation's Tone Float from 1969, which I shiver when thinking of associating it with anything particularly tasteful. This is the main reason why 'Leda' is my favorite track; it's devoid of any of the aforementioned. Yet, it also has a tranquility provided mainly in part by that classic floaty synthesizer (the guitar and drums are some of the best as well). That is not enough for me to hate the album though in any case, because the music still remains extremely pleasant for the majority of it's duration.

Criminally unknown and underrated, I want to the best of my ability to spread the world of this little-known album. Hell, it's got me hooked for the remaining material of the band, so why don't you get in on it as well?