Predictability isn't necessarily a bad characteristic. In fact, we employ it to determine whether or not to step out into the path of an oncoming Ford Explorer; or to chomp on some foxglove flowers. Because of accurately predicted circumstances, we avoid being squished by blown-out, careening SUVs, or having our hearts implode as a result of digitalis poisoning.

Despite self-righteous claims to the contrary, predictability in music is also not necessarily bad. For the most part, it's how we determine what a band, previously unknown to us, will sound like. If the cover art displays Satan and his happy minions caroling around ancient menhirs, we extract that the band won't sound like Macy Gray. Just because a record is predicable doesn't always mean it's a waste of time. Laika's Good Looking Blues is predictable, and it's also a finely crafted album. Hell, even Underground Resistance are predictable, but they still release top-notch gear. I propose that Pitchfork institute a predictability index.

The predictability index will be a figure between zero and one, whereby "one" indicates complete predictability, and "zero" (which would be rarely assigned) would denote a completely unreal event had taken place. For example, the predictability index of Kid Rock making a record with Laotian dub phreaks would be 0.09; the predictability index for Jah Wobble getting slow and low with Laotian dub phreaks, one. (It's a fact: sooner or later, the Wob will get around to appropriating every low-end harmony known to humanity.)

So, with these tools, I come to assess Earth 4. Predictability index: 0.59. Surprised? You should be! Released on one of LTJ Bukem's many imprints, Earth 4 is a departure from the smooth, dinner party drum-n-bass he usually subjects naive club kids to. The contributors to this compilation have jumped on the smooth'n'jazzy, four-to-the-floor deep house train, and copped some serious style leanings.

Opening with Flying Fish's "The Bloc," Earth 4 seriously threatens to play its trump card on the first hand. The track is a samba-house stormer that you'd imagine the Masters of Work wouldn't have balked at releasing on their own label. It's followed by the pedestrian Lalo Shiflin spy-flick mannerisms of K-Scope's "The Set Up," and immediately, the momentum initiated by "The Bloc" dissipates.

Detroit ambient techno bod, John Beltran, tries like hell to get the album back on track with "Aztec Girl," moving from vee-vee tasteful Spanish guitar flourishes to club-tested beats with ease and sensitivity. Beltran gets two bites of this cherry when his "Seven Miles High" appears later on, again nudging this collection back out of a noodly, preciously jazzy dead end.

Big Bud, one of only two Good Looking stalwarts compiled here, offer "Bluberry Muffins," a heavy handed (for them) take on deep house. Check their Infinity + Infinity album for a much clearer impression of what these guys can achieve when they put in some effort. The other Bukem regular, Tayla, sounds out of his comfort zone. Of all the artists in the Good Looking stable, Tayla is the only one that can pull off the coffee table chic of ambient drum-n-bass with dexterity. The meticulousness of his take on global house, "Timefields," is respectable, but somewhere, he lost his soul.

Earth 4 is by far the most interesting and least wanky of the Good Looking compilations. Bukem has released a record that's outside his usual style, while maintaining his trademark vibe. That that vibe errs too often on the earnest and the studied is very unfortunate. But at least he's not being utterly predictable.

-Paul Cooper