Chopek and Lovejoy first met when they began playing with eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter in April 2000. Shortly after meeting, they decided to make an album together. By January 2001 they were creating the all-original, co-composed material for Brain Trust. "From the very start," Chopek says, "The tunes came to us naturally. We would get together and record everything we played. Then we went back and listened, and built on the ideas that we liked." Lovejoy recalls, "I didn't think I had it in me to come up with an album's worth of material. It was a challenge getting over that mental barricade. Once we got together it flowed really easily." The album was recorded in March 2001 and released in August 2001.

The pleasure Chopek and Lovejoy display for experimental music-making gives the album a carefree spin and brings to mind the Buddhist adage 'Focus not on the destination, but the journey.' Each tune is distinct and separate-one minute you are at a hip-hop dance club, the next you're surrounded by an African drum circle, then it's off to a psychedelic space trip via Steve Reich. Lovejoy comments "We wanted it to be eclectic without being self-conscious. We didn't try to force it, but we wanted it to be accessible for the non-drummer." The overall effect is that each tune offers a different spin of fresh ideas, delivered unpredictably yet with confidence, leaving you giddy in the discovery of this new music.

While the leaders stay true to their percussion-based roots, Chopek and Lovejoy incorporate a lifetime of influences on Brain Trust. Both studied classical, jazz, pop and Latin music from a young age and after college set out to work with the musicians they admired. For Chopek, it meant lessons with Billy Martin of Medeski Martin & Wood, and Leon Parker. For Lovejoy, that included percussion masters Mino Cinelu and Bashiri Johnson.

On this record they invite musicians that have both influenced and inspired them. Chopek says, "We didn't just call them out of the blue. We asked them to play on our record because of existing relationships." The guest line-up includes percussionist Billy Martin, bassist Danton Boller of the Jazz Mandolin Project, and Charlie Hunter who plays bass guitar, twelve string guitar, and Fender Rhodes here. Scott Harding (Medeski Martin & Wood's Combustication and The Dropper) recorded and mixed the album. The two leaders successfully incorporate these established voices into their music without losing sight of their own creativity.

With Brain Trust, Chopek and Lovejoy clearly state their goal to create fresh music on their own terms. While the eclecticism makes for a mixed bag of tracks, the album speaks to the global infosphere in which we live today.

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