The vast musical landscape of the UK includes genres that haven't accumulated any sort of acclaim in the States. It might mean that audiences on this side of the Atlantic aren't interested or maybe just ignorant. But it also might mean that while New York, Chicago and Los Angeles fancy themselves important cultural centers, that title rightly belongs to London. It's not as sprawling as Los Angeles, but counts a ridiculous amount of people in a relatively limited space - and that's why the rent there sucks. But because of its population including such a wide swath of cultures, the music there takes on some sort of all-inclusive otherness.

Hip hop, much like any other genre that's been birthed in the last thirty years or so, has had the opportunity to become a world wide phenomenon. It's kinda like making a snowball. If you roll it around to get it to its acceptable shape and size, the snowball picks up bits and pieces of stuff lying around on the ground. That probably sounded better in my head, but the inclusion of everything from jazz and soul to punk and psych makes hip hop a weirdly inclusive music even if the scene itself is pretty homogenous.

A UK producer named Ghost has taken his snowball from the UK to New Zealand and back, along the way picking up disparate sounds for inclusion on his two full length albums and handful of mix tapes. He's worked as a producer, counting some big names in the UK and the States as collaborators, but he's been in clubs and on the radio as well. None of these experiences, though, necessarily make him a candidate for releasing a solid disc of beats - but he has none the less.

Ghost's had comparisons to RJD2 and DJ Shadow levied upon him. And it might be fair considering the fact that both of those aforementioned dudes enjoy the inclusion of psych rock into their beats - the latter preferring Zappa to a great many other things. And on "Feel Pain," from his latest disc Freedom Of Thought, this British producer seems to sit midway between those two Americans. The pervasive and up front drumming isn't subverted by the tracks key line or flute sample. It might come off as a left over from Entroducing, but even that's pretty miraculous. The song continues on to include a smattering of reveredy wah wah guitar before moving back to a more traditional boom bap.

The amount of source material going into just that one track obviously points to Ghost's production abilities. But the entirety of Freedom Of Thought, including the tracks sporting vocals - like "Move Strong" and "S'all Good" - has a sort of buoyancy that some producer dominated efforts lack. Here Ghost is able to balance his somewhat experimental leanings with the traditions of the game. It's because of this temperance that the disc is probably going to be rather well received in Europe. But we'll hafta wait and see if Freedom Of Thought can make it across the pound in the birth place of the genre.