Making Bones

Red Snapper would like to let you believe they've traded in their samplers for a drum kit and upright bass. Assembling a retro, jazz-inspired, live-sounding, up-tempo, instrumental hip-hop record, the British group has shed its former movie-soundtrack guise. As is fashionable in the breakbeat scene, they go heavy on the electric jazz samples, but unlike their contemporaries they know exactly when to use them; they have just the right measurement of both organic and synthetic. Tracks like "The Sleepless" and "The Tunnel" reap the powerful benefits of both worlds but without the pretension of some beret-wearing charlatan telling you this is real music. --Daniel Shumate