Induce

Themes of spirituality and renewal reign on Induce's debut album, Cycle. The DJ has been a fixture in South Florida's underground scene for several years, spinning at hot spots such as I/O and the Pawn Shop as well as events in Wynwood and the Design District. And his work on Cycle is just like his live sets: full of lofty aspirations and cross-genre pollination that do not disappoint. Strains of house, IDM, trip-hop, hip-hop, and jazz weave throughout the record and are given equal footing. It's a seamless detour down the back roads of the digital millennium. And though it would be a stretch to call Cycle organic, it does convey a certain logic and breathlessness absent from most laptop records.

"The Re-introduction" opens with a slab of relaxing ambiance that subtly transitions to the classic jazz montage/homage "Coltrane's Brain." Friend Kevin Russell lends flute over the track's stop-and-go beats as Induce's didactic approach to the legendary Rhodes piano rides somewhere just above the mix. This head-bopping number wouldn't sound out of place in a Wong Kar Wai film. "Resuscitation" follows in a more upbeat vein with freaked disco hooks and underwater psychedelic perversions, while "Systemic Mechanic" -- with its jittery false starts -- hints at an underlying tension released by the curving oblongs of "A Wave of Calm Before the Warm." Induce even tries his hand at rhyming over the lean jazz samples and four-on-the-floor beats on "Rebirth's Reprise."

As a bonus, Cycle has three unnamed tracks at the end that add another ten minutes of music. Track 11 is a delicious samba-laced carnival number, while Track 12 is a blotter-paper meltdown of TV game show themes with hyper Casio tones dictating the cadence. The album's coda, Track 13, returns the listener to less hectic environs with straightforward beat manipulation and soft digital landscapes. Mood-tweaker, soul-relaxer, visionary designer of astral planes and soundscapes -- Induce fears nothing as he tackles big ideas and succeeds.