It’s dark instrumental hip-hop, but smart hip-hop like the Gorillaz have made. You know it is hip-hop, but you aren’t sure how they came up with that combination of sounds and why it sounds so accessible even to people that don’t like the rest of the genre. It sometimes gets grouped with Portishead, but it is much more modern sounding and diverse. It can have a bit of a DJ Shadow vibe yet not as consistent in looping, but occasionally it will go absolutely nowhere for long periods of time. It’s sometimes jazzy and indie sounding like Tortoise or Sea and Cake.

It has old keyboards and organs, drums, either a second set of drums or a percussionist, bass (maybe 2 at a time), guitar (for effect in some songs and as a legitimate instrument in others), a small horn section panned to one side, a small string section panned to the other (both sections through dark sounding old-school ribbon mics), a sampler, and a scratch DJ.

It rarely plays out because everybody that’s involved is grown up and doing real-life, but when it does play, it is an event. It’s a full stage and varied set. Recorded material is mostly for the band to listen to, but about 12 other people will love it. Then some guest appearance requests get turned down and it never blows up like we all secretly hoped it would.

That’s kinda what it sounds like in my head.