Clipse

At some point the Neptunes will undoubtedly run out of noises, but for the moment they prove an inescapable presence, adding their glitch-inspired minimalist electroscapes to everyone from Beenie Man and Nelly to Britney and Justin to their own funk band N.E.R.D. Chad Hugo and Pharell William's latest project is Clipse - actually, it's one of their oldest, being friends from, uh, back in the day - a Virginia rap duo fronted by brothers Pusha T and Malice, but the only reason to pay attention is the Neptune's on-point production. Largely obsessed with drug dealing (a style that's been played out since the days of Ice-T and N.W.A.), their pedestrian raps about their "love for guns and 'caine" merely accent how above-average the music is. Dropping buried synth lines, string snippets, piano snatches, old-school drum claps and spare but intricately laid-out beats, an instrumental version would be near-perfect, ranking up with the best of Autechre or Dr. Octagon's The Instrumentalyst. I guess they could leave on the great "Grindin'" dancehall remix, which features the toasting of T-dot's own Kardinal Offishall.