And it is, indeed, something of an anomaly. DJ Logic's musical palette pretty much spaning the entire spectrum of popular music throwing in a bit of jazz here, a bit of house there, a bit funk, some drum n' bass, a bit of dub... and all under a backbone of hip-hop and scratch DJing.
How did things get to be so all over the shop? Well, Logic was raised amongst the eighties hip-hop culture of the Bronx before getting involved in bands that fused his turntable skills into the live set-up. As you might expect from one of New York's most in-demand session DJs, 'The Anomaly' is frighteningly proficient but heavy on 'session' character, or lack of.
As the band hops from the insistent French house groove of 'Ron's House' to the hyperactive drum n' bass skittering of 'Frequency One', the lazy funk grooves of 'Bean-E-Man' to the wigged-out jazz techno (!) of 'An Interlude', the sounds and styles move too quickly for you to sink your teeth into any single one.
Whilst both the dance and hip-hop undergrounds have exploited their lack of technical musical know-how, finding their greatest innovations in the intersection between technology and a wilful disregard for musical law, Logic and his fellow musicians find themselves trapped by music's big black book. As a result their excursions into the world's most innovative underground sounds become paradoxically formalist.
There are certainly occasions on which things come together: the dark and exotic menace of 'Hip-Hopera' featuring the vocals of Marie Claire and 'The Project(s)', a more straightforward 'Roots'-style live hip-hop vocal. It's not enough, though, to save this album from slipping into the mire of prog-hop.
