Logical Progression – LTJ Bukem (1996)
By Rafi Mercer
Rhythm as Horizon
Some records don’t just define a scene; they distil a philosophy. LTJ Bukem’s Logical Progression is one of those — a collection that turned drum & bass into something luminous, aerial, almost weightless. Released in 1996 on his own Good Looking Records imprint, it gathered the label’s early 12-inches into one flowing suite and, in doing so, revealed a different face of electronic music: elegant, expansive, deeply human.
At a time when most of the UK’s jungle scene was still sweaty and kinetic — rave halls, pirate radio, flash of light on concrete — Bukem imagined something more architectural. His sound wasn’t about frenzy but about flight: breakbeats stretched like wings, basslines that hummed rather than thumped, chords that shimmered in the upper air. He called it “intelligent drum & bass,” but that undersells the soul in it. What Logical Progression really captured was emotional discipline — rhythm as calm.
The record opens with PHD’s “Above and Beyond”, its first bars already a thesis statement: liquid chords, soft hi-hats, bass purring like low tide. Then comes LTJ Bukem’s “Horizons” — perhaps his most defining track. It begins with that endless pad, like dawn seen from altitude, before the breakbeat unfurls — light but insistent. The rhythm rolls, yet nothing collides. You could dance or simply breathe. It’s music for movement of any kind, whether a train window or a city street at 3 a.m.
Bukem, born Daniel Williamson in Watford, came to this sound through jazz. His early piano training, his fascination with Herbie Hancock and Lonnie Liston Smith, gave him an ear for chords that glide rather than jab. When he entered London’s rave circuit as a DJ in the late ’80s, he carried that sensibility with him. While others chopped Amen breaks to shreds, Bukem layered them, finding grace in the repetition. The result was a hybrid: jungle’s propulsion married to jazz’s harmony, ambient’s patience, and a touch of soul’s melancholy.
What made Logical Progression special wasn’t only the tracks — it was how they were sequenced. It played like a journey, a single unbroken movement from euphoria to reflection. Each track blended into the next with the ease of tide pulling at shore. The second half of the record — with pieces like Appaloosa’s “Travelling”, Aquarius’ “Drift to the Centre”, and Blame’s “Music Takes You” — feels less like a compilation than a long exhale.
There’s a sense of geometry to Bukem’s production. The snares fall with surgical precision, yet nothing feels mechanical. He uses space as an instrument — the reverb tails, the stereo spread, the way a pad hangs a millisecond longer than expected. It’s electronic music designed for deep listening. Through good monitors, the low end doesn’t punch; it breathes. The upper mids shimmer like brushed cymbals. Everything moves in slow, circular motion.
In the listening bar, Logical Progression changes the temperature. It doesn’t announce itself; it recalibrates the air. When Horizons unfurls, conversation drops to a murmur. The bass gently presses against the floorboards; the hi-hats flicker in the periphery. People stop talking, not out of reverence but instinct — their pulse has synchronised to the rhythm. That’s Bukem’s true craft: balance so precise it becomes invisible.
Culturally, Logical Progression marked a turning point. It took a scene rooted in the underground and gave it shape, elegance, narrative. The cover art — that celestial globe of light and motion — mirrored the sound: urban but cosmic. This was music for travellers, thinkers, dreamers. You could still dance to it, but you didn’t have to. For the first time, drum & bass had an audience that preferred to sit, to listen, to let the music unfold like weather.
The artists Bukem curated here were part of that vision. Peshay’s “Piano Tune” glows with optimism — a melodic line that seems to rise perpetually without resolving. Blame’s “Planet Dust” (years before Bad Company reused the title) builds from fragments of jazz flute into a kind of celestial swing. Chameleon’s “Link” merges pads and percussion until rhythm and harmony become one texture. None of it shouts. All of it breathes.
And then, halfway through, there’s a shift. The KMC’s “Space Funk” and Seba’s “Sonic Winds” edge toward darker territory — metallic drums, more mechanical bass — before Bukem guides the mix back into light. That arc gives the compilation its emotional depth. It’s not static ambience; it’s journey and return.
By the end — as the closing track Demonstration of Style fades into silence — you realise you’ve been inside something that behaves more like an environment than an album. Logical Progression isn’t a playlist; it’s architecture.
It’s easy to forget how radical this sounded in 1996. The mainstream thought of electronic music as either rave chaos or chill-out lounge. Bukem carved a middle space: intellectual but warm, danceable but introspective. He and his Good Looking crew built a global network of listeners who valued fidelity and feeling in equal measure. They threw nights at London’s Speed club that felt like temples to tempo — rooms full of people listening, not shouting.
The impact was wide. You can hear echoes of Logical Progression in early Bonobo, in Nujabes’ lo-fi jazz beats, in the atmospheric producers who would later populate streaming algorithms. It taught a generation that rhythm could be soft, that movement could be meditative.
When I play Logical Progression in the studio or bar, I usually let it run from start to finish. It resists interruption. There’s something ritualistic about its flow — the way tracks overlap, the sense of continuous ascent. It’s like watching dawn happen in slow motion.
Nearly thirty years on, the sound remains untarnished. The technology has changed — laptops instead of samplers, algorithms instead of labels — but the mood endures. Those pads still feel infinite, those snares still glide. It’s the sound of a scene that learned to breathe.
Bukem called his label Good Looking, but beauty wasn’t the point. What he built was balance — between chaos and calm, head and heart, city and sky. That’s why Logical Progression endures. It isn’t nostalgia. It’s reminder.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
