World Beater

What can you expect from Ubiquity Records artist and badass producer John Beltran’s first-ever performance out this way? Everything. You see, one never knows where a Beltran cut will meander. Some tunes lean toward a quiet-storm chill-out factor inspired by Radiohead’s Nigel Godrich and even some New Age elements. Others, like “Kissed by the Sun,” explore the music of several continents, from U.K.-type drum and bass and South American bossa nova, before returning north through a Caribbean dancehall and landing back in the States with a head-nodding, funk-soaked soul thud.