DJ Logic presents Project Logic

This album is truly amazing! I'm not normaly someone who likes this kind of music but logic does an incredible job. This album is full of otherworldly sounds, colors, beats, and some downright funcky playing but john medeski in a couple tracks. if you like hip hop, electronic, rock, jazz, or even classical music this album is a must.

Sorry, but leave that to Tower Records. Bygone era, brutha. If you don’t believe that turntables can be an “instrument” in the hands of an artist, then you’re not going to like this CD… or GET IT for that matter. This is a DJ Logic CD, not Macero, Bernstein or Ribot. It’s his mad skills that are on display here. He is blending and mixing and adding layer upon layer to allow the listener to hear each elements in a new way. The unique vocals in “Mnemonics” and “Spider Dance” are a great example. The funk in “Shea’s Groove” is carried through in the rhythm and a sick Jimmy Smith or Charles Kynard-like organ. It’s personally one of my favorites. You can file it under whatever you like, but this wicked, “improv” album is one of the best across many genres.

I don't know where DJ Logic gets the idea that he's playing jazz - or that his reviewers think he's doing so. This is standard rap/hip-hop right off the assembly lines for the most part. One Ornette Coleman -like sax solo does not suffice. Made a mistake downloading this. This stuff is for kids, no matter what kind of guest list he gets on his discs. The Jennifer Charles track is listenable (which is why I gave it 2 stars) but is far short of Golden Palominos at their best, despite what the blurb here says. Vernon Reid? Marc Ribot? They might as well not have been mentioned, their parts are mixed so far down. When they do pop up, their parts are quite pedestrian. Jazz is a pretty broad category, but not this broad. Not everything the so-called Downtown crowd does is all that great.

If the Grammy's were really reflective of modern music and what was revolutionizing the world around us and how we listened to music, Project Logic would have been the album of year in 2001. It is one of my absolute favorites. The work of Scotty Hard (Scott Harding - who also worked on such inspired pieces as Wu-Tang Forever, Medeski Martin & Wood's the Dropper, The Dirty Dozen's Buck Jump and Suspiria with John Medeski and Stan Douglas) is absolute genius. The album is basically the brainchild of Scotty, Logic and bassist Melvin Gibbs, who was very much the backbone of the initial incarnation of Project Logic. With highly inspired guest performances from John Medeski, Chris Wood, Marc Ribot, Jennifer Charles, illyB and the majority of the downtown music scene it is hard to do better than this record. From the more typically DJ/funk/groove tracks like Shea's Groove to latin wonders like Una Cosa Buena (featuring Marc Ribot) to vocal/electronica eargasms like Spider Dance (featuring Jennifer Charles), Project Logic explores widely varying genres in an interesting, respectful, fresh and masterful angle. I can not recommend the record highly enough. It did not leave my CD player for nearly a year and still surprises me when I choose it on my pod. A true "Desert Island Record" in my book and one that no record collection should be without.