Lora Logic

Few saxophonists from the punk era sound quite like Lora Logic, the Wembley-born player whose horn work gave early X-Ray Spex and her own groups a distinctive edge. Born Susan Whitby around 1960 to a Finnish mother and a British father, she was drawn to the instrument through David Bowie records. Logic is also a singer and songwriter, and one commentator has placed her among post-punk's most notable atypical women.

Her route into music was unusually casual. At fifteen, in 1976, she answered a Melody Maker advert placed by Poly Styrene, telephoned to audition and was hired without playing a note. She was briefly in X-Ray Spex, leaving before their debut album, Germfree Adolescents, which still carried her uncredited saxophone arrangements. She then formed Essential Logic, whose Beat Rhythm News (Waddle Ya Play?) appeared as an album, and finished the follow-up as the solo record Pedigree Charm. Later spells included Red Krayola and sessions for The Raincoats and Boy George. Her 1995 return to X-Ray Spex was short-lived, and the 2003 reissue Fanfare in the Garden gathered early Essential Logic material, while 2022 brought Land of Kali, a second Essential Logic album.