Down 2 Earth (The Standard Edition)

by Ras G

Ras G is one of those artists I'm not really sure how to categorize.  I think of him as being in the same general area of music as people like Flying Lotus, a madcap experimenter with loops and breakbeats, but his work is much gentler than Lotus's.

Down 2 Earth has twenty-one tracks, but clocks in at only thirty-three minutes, making this a quick little beat tape project.  His beats are often pretty, and quite soulful.  This is a lovely album; often it's mercurial in the way in which it moves in and out of my conscious attention when I'm listening to it.

I do wish that Ras would leave out that one sample that appears on every track I've ever heard of his - the voice that shouts out "Oh Ras" in an extended Jamaican accent.  It's the equivalent of crummy old downloads that always had to have DJ Kay Slay shouting out his own name.