Devious Methods

Contemporary beat freaks care little for petty genre boundaries. While anachronistic hip-hop heads are busy keeping it real, their more open-minded dance-music partners are spilling over into new, unexplored territory. Take Los Angeles's Hive, for example. Hive's first album, the independently released Working with Sound, bridged instrumental trip-hop with casual jazz piano licks. Hive's even more at home on Devious Methods, the follow-up LP. Here, the beats come harder and faster and dip into aggressive ambient sounds and hardstep drum & bass, bringing along some angry guitars and a whole slew of voice-overs for the loud and bumpy ride. Unafraid to road-test new combinations, Hive plants flags for himself as a leading pioneer of the ever-expanding U.S. electronic scene. --Jon Caramanica