Customer Reviews

Logical Progression 4

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Mc Conrad finally gets to lend his considerable talents to part of the ongoing "Logical Progression" series, and seeing as he's been a mainstay from it's early beginnings, it seems only natural that he gets to compile an influential tracklisting of his chosen tracks.

Firstly if your considering buying this, It's strongly recommended that you track down the limited 3 Disk edition (which is the version that's been reviewed here). As it adds a superb 3rd disk of remixes, that are worthy of a standalone release by itself. (although bear in mind, that this is also much harder to come by, but more than worth the effort).

The album is broken down into 3 distinct regions....Disk 1(Logical progression) which along with Mc Conrad's chosen tracks, largely features Conrads vocals on the majority of tracks, and picks out a plethora of sophisticated intelligent Drum'n'Bass tracks, that centre around Conrad's commanding vocal.....the highlights include: "Halcyon Voyage / Logical / Malik", and for such a accomplished tracklisting it would be hard to pick a standout, but if pushed I'd have to pick "Futures Call", it's the magnificent vocal breakdown with a slight Rhythm & blues feel, that's is as stylish as it is refined. Heavy emphasis on keyboard earmarks this track, along with production that is both confident and exemplary, and based on this evidence Conrad has produced a disk truly worthy of the `logical progression' brand.

Disk 2 (studio Exclusives) seems to be pitched as more of a rarities disk, with either material that is exclusive to this album or more likely tracks that also featured on a handful of releases, and are not as widely known, and feel a little more experimental with the sound, and possibly tracks that seem ideally suited to Bukem's own "Earth" series (which compiles various artists, with various musical fusions of Drum'n'Bass/Breakbeat). Not that this disk is any less worthy, and although it is an instrumental disk, such is the proficiency of material here (Big Bud - Indian Summer / Makato's- - Take my Soul Baby / Future Engineers - Merge / Nookie's - Solstice), that the material here arguably stands up as well as the first disk. In fact it could be argued that people that like a little more experimentation in their music may consider this the superior disk.

The Final disk (Disk 3), is solely devoted to remixes, and so some of this will & won't be familiar to listeners. What everyone will agree on, is that this isn't merely a filler remix disk bolted on to the album, in an effort to charge more for the album, as Makoto's remix of "Future's Call" is arguably superior to the original, and more diligently arranged. Rantoul's interpretation of "Strategies & Plans" deserves a mention of its instrumental bliss, and is as much downtempo electronica, as it is intelligent D'N'B, the warm keyboards evoke memories of prime era `Stevie wonder', and remain strangely hypnotic. And with further excellent remixes by "PFM / Big Bud / PHD / Blame....etc", Conrad by keeping a tight control on the quality his maintained an exceptionally high standard of quality throughout this disk (in fact this is applicable to all of the disks).

This edition of the "Logical Progression" is probably (after the original Bukem effort) the finest in the Logical progression series, sure....Bukem's effort is still the defining moment in the series, but to detract from this albums sheer brilliance would be unfair. For an album that spreads 27 tracks across 3 Cd's, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there'd be a lot of filler mixed in amongst this. And fortunately you'd be wrong, not only has Conrad complied an album to rank amongst the best in the series, but he's also devised one of the strongest triple albums seen in many years........essential to anyone with a passing interest in this form of music.