Sometimes the logic of life can be hard to wrap our heads around, so we escape to our own personal sanctuaries deep in the consciousness of our minds. Countless hours have been spent pondering the meanings of the messages that come to us as we allow our bodies, and minds, to drift into that familiar yet totally foreign place that our dreams come from. To understand dream logic, one must be able to escape the grip of traditional logic, preconceived notions and all expectations. When one can get to this state, it is transformative and the magic can happen. However, when a group of musicians can achieve this state of being as one, like the members of The Dream Logic, their individual streams of consciousness combine and become a flowing river of sound that traditional logic cannot make sense of … sometimes it’s best to listen to the music play.

Charles Compo (guitar, vocals), Jerry Brooks (bass) and Camille Gainer (drums) are no rookies dreaming of the big stages, but rather seasoned veterans who individually have shared the stage and credits with pop, funk and soul superstars alike. As a result, it comes as no surprise that they were able to bring in big time artist like Eric Krasno (Soulive), Mark Peterson (Vernon Reid, Cassandra Williams), James Casey (Trey Anastasio Band) and Mark Williams (The Legendary Roots Crew, Kool & The Gang) to really bring it home on their debut album.

The album pulls influences from all over the sonic soundscape and will have you grooving, raging and rocking out as the impressive 13 tracks resonate in your ears. “Quietly Freaky” gets the ball rolling and foreshadows a little bit of everything you will get with the rest of the tracks, vocals included. A rock guitar riff lays the foundation and is flushed out with tasteful sax work by guest musician James Casey in addition to Jeff Miller on keys. Things quickly move into the realm of jazz fusion and culminate with a soaring guitar lead by Charles Compo that drops right into a smooth sax solo, all effortlessly glued together by the interplay between drums and bass.

“Spooky Reaction” is a beast, clocking in at just about 7 minutes; however it’s not just the length of the track that stands out. The track moves effortlessly and not one measure comes off as it was forced or out of place. Toward the middle of the track, the songs really gets going and is propelled into a deep jam led by the lead guitar work of heavyweight Eric Krasno. Surprisingly, but fitting perfectly, a gentle flute echoes and swirls around Kranso’s run all the while Brian Dunne is going off on the kit explosively, yet tightly controlled.

The instrumental “Mustafa Sunrise” will really get the feet moving with its Latin/Caribbean influence clearly shining through. The percussion work is hot and the call and response phrasing between the horns and guitar early in the track is classic. A lot gets packed into the three minute-eighteen second track and the result is a thick sound and fun vibe with serious musicianship on display. The bop influenced horns and guitar blend into one another while bouncing off a deep pocketed bass, all the while the drumming creatively fills the gaps and forces movement upon anything in an ears range.

The rest of the tracks on the debut album from The Dream Logic also push the envelope and defy categorizations. Each track on the record contains shadows of Charles Compo’s jazz roots and prominently displays his compositional prowess and knack for putting together complementary musicians to achieve the sounds the band chases. With a core group including himself, Jerry Brooks and Camille Gainer, The Dream Logic makes perfect sense and sounds fresh. Listeners drawn to this album due to the likes of Eric Krasno, Mustafa Ahmed, Mark Williams, Brian Dunne, Mark Peterson, Jeff Miller and James Casey will not be disappointed at any point along the way and will surely have a new band heavily in their musical rotation for quite sometime as another album is already in the works.