Link to our Facebook
Link to our Instagram
Link to our TikTok

Live Review: DJ Logic strikes with precision on her self-titled debut EP

17 December 2018 | 4:25 pm | Michael Stratford Hutch

There’s much to be said for patience, especially when it comes to putting out your first record. Waiting until you’ve developed something of undeniable quality—a personal style, a collaborative network, the right label—often produces gripping results. It’s not so much “emerging fully formed” as many critics oversimplify, it’s finally letting other people in, oftentimes into worlds that have been under construction for years, even decades. DJ LOGIC's self-titled debut EP on Melbourne-based label SUMAC is just this: a striking collection of work that seemingly emerges from nowhere, yet is ultimately the result of significant hard work and development over a long period.

For her first release, the reclusive Sydney-born, Melbourne-based producer (aka Samantha Poulter) has assembled a diverse offering of six tracks that “run the gamut from UK funky and deep house, to abstract percussion jams and ambient experiments.”

Opener ‘Precision’ is bold, polyrhythmic bliss, establishing a fine balance between percussive elements. Each layer is folded in with pinpoint timing, and the track’s evocative textures pay homage to her Indo-Indian heritage.

Plug into the latest music with our FREE weekly newsletter

Follow-up ‘The River Is Tight’ intrigues with its ambient experimentation, and through its contrast with ‘Precision’, introduces DJ Logic’s keen eclecticism.

This broad sonic palate is only made more apparent with ‘DJ Logic Please Forgive Me’, a goosebumps-inducing vocal house rework of RnB icon Deborah Cox. As soon as the pulsating FM bass drops in around the one-minute mark, it’s absolutely clear that this is an iconic moment, inviting feverish repeat listens.

If all this wasn’t enough to seal the deal, ‘Derrière’ somehow takes things up a notch, shifting the EP to a tough, utilitarian place, with hypnotic minimal bass and repeated vocal samples. It's downright nasty, in the best sense.

‘Na’, featuring the gifted DJ Plead, makes for an excellent pairing, and shares a clear through-line with ‘Precision’ in its channelling of heritage, as well as DJ Plead’s own signature Middle Eastern-inflected samples and textures.

Closer ‘Baddie Part Two’ doubles down on the precise rhythms established elsewhere in the EP, featuring a lyrical portamento lead synth and an infectious sense of momentum.

DJ Logic’s style is wonderful in its fusion of the idiosyncratic and referential, and through working extensively with long-time SUMAC affiliate COP ENVY, the mixing is superb in its subtlety and care. As the fourth release on SUMAC, she is in great company on the emergent label, which also features releases from POISON (the collaborative pairing of DJ Plead and T.Morimoto), FAKE (one of Lavurn Lee’s many aliases, apart from Cassius Select) and Jon Watts (a staple of the warehouse party scene, and a deft producer).

This EP is a testament to patience, to precision, and above all to cultivation of personal style—owning and trusting in your taste, and all the different paths it can lead you down if you let it. I can’t imagine how many producers and artists don’t end up letting anyone into their worlds, and how poorer the world is because they don't. Thankfully so, DJ Logic has let us into hers—and what an expansive, ambitious, and affective world it is.

SEE MORE