Logic1000 : DJ-Kicks
“Wait, you’re still doing that?” is the psychic text message I receive in my brain from friends, artists, and DJs around the world with whom I played records many years ago when they see that I’m still writing about the DJ-Kicks mix series, which began in Berlin in 1995. Some folks may view it as a DJing 101 tool or, better yet, a hangdog industry self-congratulatory device.
Trust, I got critical. Surgical pressing the digital buttons anytime I thought the mix series had too many pale white dudes who looked, sounded and played like some cat named Dieter, while the DJ industry was booming—exploding with women and men of color bringing different ideas to the mixing table. Shattering ceilings, breaking barriers, and just straight up making shit sound insular—not cut-and-paste stupid. Because in a world that’s gone Trump-drunk with fascism running rampant through the woods wearing a shitty stinky diaper (as The New Yorker used in a recent email header “we are sleepwalking into autocracy”), sometimes the best way to share great ideas is on the back of a Trojan horse that for good or bad, reaches everybody.
Electronic music, by nature, when done correctly, is resistance music. Period. At least that’s what the elders told me, the ones—Black, Brown, Asian, gay, straight, trans, and caucasian folk—who once danced on Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage floor. As I wrote last October: “Since its inception, the series, released via !K7 Records, has championed electronic music—house and techno, drum & bass and downtempo, and genres that keep popping up before the identifier gentrification names can appear.
“For the sake of business, money remains the answer to all questions in life. It provided a face, an artist, and an idea for this once-boutique music that now generates billions of dollars year after year.”
I still feel it’s better to criticize the series when it goes banal vanilla wafer—it has had a couple of those moments over the years—and for sure celebrate it when they swing for the fences and say, “Fuck it, let the money find us.” I was forewarned by the publicist about this edition: “It’s a beauty,” and I believed that sentiment. I have five rock-solid publicists who send me music. Not whatever is hot in pushing product mode, no, I’m talking real music. It’s one dude, and the rest are women, three of whom are Black women from the UK. I’m just kicking facts and metrics, people.
I was familiar with the name but never dug deep into the Samantha Poulter a.k.a. Logic1000 canon. That changed—quickly. Coming off 2024, Poulter, the house music producer, made her debut as Logic1000, and Mother, which in turn became her long-awaited debut album, shuffled up the BPMs, with glossy “garage” and beat-driven house creating a tapestry of beats and a formula for how to sweat. There were ensuing EPs, podcasts, and touring dates across three continents, and she became a mom to her daughter. So when she was asked to contribute to K7’s iconic DJ-Kicks series, she was seeking a sense of calm and a sense of home.
Anytime someone does a downtempo, trip-hop, left-field, ambient type of mix, it inherently feels like seductive rebellion. I mean, how many times can and do we need to be plunged directly in the middle of clubland before that shit feels old and dusty? This mixed series was always about doing the non-obvious, and that is what Samantha Poulter executes with her performance of authenticity.
“Under the Sun, Beneath the Rainfall,” a track by Logic1000—the second one in—moves in heartbeat drips, with voices and horns eventually giving way to muddy synths swirling in wonky patterns that never ask anyone to dance; if anything, they push listeners to focus on stillness. Contemplation of the moment, not movement. Most times with these dance mixes, you are encouraged to take a run, do housework, or be somewhat voraciously active. But with each bleeding evaporation between songs, Poulter wants introspection. I’m motivated by DJ Plead’s “Shush” to maybe microdose in the bath or grab some edibles, and being based in San Francisco, take the slow and congested rush hour N Judah train to Ocean Beach during golden hour—which means the sun will stubbornly give way to thick fog, creeping around the train route, as Poulter crafts a soundtrack for fog busting.
Even the feature track “fused” doesn’t work like a standout diva-esque concoction. It’s built for swaying, twisting slow amid something greater, larger, bigger. Its moments with fragmented voices, raindrop melodies, and stripped-down atmospherics cement your feet and brain into this insular moment. Sure, you can envision the spotlight moving slowly across the floor into something much more grand, but this large, wonky moment just does not want to let go.
These jazzy interludes, organ-driven dirges, functions of arrangements, and snippets of charts connect one of the most human-feeling head-trips of an hour-long mix that asks for listening, not lusting. We will have plenty of time over the next couple of years to dance this mess away. But for now, let Samantha Poulter rewire our brains with music. Not tracks. So we can hatch a plan or just enjoy an afternoon meant for human connection.
Label: !K7
Year: 2025
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