While few of DJ Logic’s peers are as versatile, intuitive and free, they ain’t half-stepping either. Call ’em hip hop-abstract colonists-studio turntable authors remake/remodeling years of funk/pop grooves, jazz vamps, wild style beats and classic loops into a stylistic signature. Step Off!: A Collection of Trip Hop & Dub (Instinct Records, 58:20) will get you up to speed on who/what you’ve been missing in 10 tracks culled from underground scenes in NY, Europe, and Japan. From the dusted GrandMaster Flash and the Furious Five-meets-Herb’s Headhunters-at-Bill Laswell’s-crib roll of Bossier Nova’s “Mr. Electric Triangle” to the somnambulant electronic undertow of Shantel’s “Cabo Da Roca,” Step Off! is headphone nirvana.
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