Resolved: bespectacled, white laptop dorks can make sick hip-hop albums. No, I’m serious. It’s true. They just tend to do it alone in their rooms, rather than with a whole entourage of rappers. Springing forth from cluttered computers across the country are infectious, undeniably “hip-hop” tracks, devoid of MC’s. This new breed of instrumentals gives the musical innovations of hip-hop their due respect and visibility while advancing them beyond simple vehicles for raps. Also, it sounds sweet.

Instrumental hip-hop basically begins with DJ Shadow’s genre-defining 1996 release, Endtroducing… (Mo’ Wax) Shadow’s music is sample-based and characterized by grandiose drums, soulful instruments, haunting vocals, a huge stylistic range and patient, virtuosic DJ skills. Artists like DJ Krush released largely instrumental albums in the years prior to Shadow’s debut, but it took Endtroducing... to solidify instrumental hip-hop as its own genre and to expand its expressive language to a point where MC-less albums could be complete works.

Endtroducing…-era instrumental hip-hop is strikingly different from recent releases that are more concise, pop-oriented, stylistically differentiated, and electronic than those of the mid-late 90’s. Songs rarely take nine minutes to develop (sublimely) like Shadow’s “Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain,” arrangements are not generally as sparse and nuanced as those of, say, DJ Krush’s Krush (Shadow, 1995) or Meiso (Mo’ Wax, 1996), nor are they as dependent on an entire set as DJ Spooky’s mixes. Today’s producers/composers create melodic hip-hop beats that snatch your attention immediately, get your head noddin’ and get out.

The biggest names of the last few years are Atlanta’s Prefuse73 and Columbus’ Rjd2 (Def Jux). Rjd2’s music sounds like music you’ve heard before, which does not mean it’s unoriginal. His 2002 solo debut, Deadringer (Def Jux), is based on classic soul music, but it’s tweaked by swinging kick patterns, snappy drum tones and a skillful combination of organic instrumental samples (horns, pianos, guitars) with newer, more synthesized ones (processed keyboards, computerized basslines).

His 2004 follow-up, Since We Last Spoke (Def Jux), showcases a changed sound with more hit-or-miss results. About a third of the album is mediocre, but interesting, using crunchy rock guitars, and Stooges-esque drum fills, alongside subtler, synth-driven bridge sections. Another third of the album is just really awesome. 1980s synthesizers playing Jeff Beck licks, wah-wah guitars, oriental strings, whispery vocal samples, and vibraphones are joined with some of Rjd2’s best drum patterns and melodies. The other third completely sucks, sampling bad songs to create really bad songs. All of Rjd2’s releases contain at least some incredible, instantly likeable music, if not a whole lot of it.

Just as much as Rjd2’s subtle arrangements sound like they could come from a real band, Prefuse73’s music is almost completely otherworldly. You’ve heard the tones he uses, you can follow his beats and you might know what rap he’s sampling, but man, you’ve never heard or imagined familiar sounds like this. Prefuse73 makes jerky, catchy, glitchy electronic hip-hop. His trademark has been to use painstakingly cut-up raps to create rhythms and melodies within his music rather than rhymes on top of it. While this is fascinating, it also contributes to the overall schizophrenia of his albums. Each one contains between 16 and 23 short tracks, often under two minutes, which can turn some listeners off. Prefuse73’s first album, Vocal Studies+Uprock Narratives (Warp, 2001), contains more spliced raps, calmer, longer instrumentals, and fewer video-game blips, cell phone beeps and mile-a-minute samples than his two more recent releases, One Word Extinguisher (Warp, 2003) and Extinguished: Outtakes (Warp, 2003). If you are interested in his insane(ly good) production skills, then his albums will consistently captivate; if not, you may find yourself tuning out between addictive grooves that actually stick around. (Also, if you don’t get something out of “Perverted Undertone” from One Word Extinguisher, you may not have a soul).

Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Dabrye (DAH-bree), a Prefuse73 collaborator, has released two great instrumental LPs, One/Three (Ghostly, 2001) and Instrmntl. (Eastern Developments, 2002). “I like trying to make things funky and sexy when they weren’t before,” he says of his own trial-and-error approach to sampling.

One/Three embodies this principle in nearly every track, blending highly processed instrumental samples and sterile, hard-hitting beats into the perfect soundtrack for a cold lab of sexy robot funk. Instrmntl. feels warmer than the glacial One/Three, using jazzier samples of more types of instruments. While Instrmntl. is the less fascinating album, Dabrye’s rhythmic intuition and crackling production make most tracks catchy (although they can’t save some from the boring wankery of jazz flute). Despite Dabrye’s staunch aversion to the genre label, One/Three and Instrmntl. are two finer offerings of recent instrumental hip-hop.

Among the more obscure beat composers is Portland, Oregon’s Deceptikon. This guy is a major bespectacled, white, hip-hop nerd. For God’s sake, he’s most notable for winning “laptop battles” (like MC battles but contestants make beats on their laptop!) Despite outward nerdiness, neither Deceptikon nor his full length, Lost Subject (Merck), screw around. His sounds are straightforward (keyboards usually), his beats are simple, and Deceptikon has discovered exactly how long an instrumental hip-hop track should last in order to stay fresh. His formula is constant: instrumental teaser, drums enter, bass enters, some kind of sample enters, bridge, bass (and maybe drums) drops out, instruments return, track over. When Deceptikon tries to get trickier than simply applying interesting samples (music box, Stan Getz saxophone) to this formula, he sounds like a dork, but luckily he doesn’t choose to do this very often.

Lots of other recent releases fall into the category of instrumental hip-hop in some way. Ratatat, a two piece band of ¸ber-hipsters, make mournful rock-ish hip-hop. MF Doom’s Special Herbs series is filled with freestyle-appropriate beats. Sixtoo combines studio techniques with live instrumentation in dark compositions. Daedelus samples orchestral arrangements from 40s and 50s film scores in his slightly abstracted beats. And, of course, genre progenitors DJ Shadow and DJ Krush continue to release albums.

So if you either don’t want to hear someone rapping about the usual fare (whether its how great, and rich, a rapper they are or righteous liberalism), or you’ve got an interest in the instrumental aspect of hip-hop specifically, then check these guys out. But hurry up and buy their albums—laptops are getting expensive.