Morcheeba

Coming out of the post-Portishead boom of female-led trip-hop acts, Morcheeba joined the party in 1996. Inspired more by pop music than moody atmospherics, they snared American ears with "Trigger Hippie." While not completely straying from the "dark beats + spy themes = Trip-Hop" formula on 1998's sophomore outing, Big Calm, Morcheeba made the wise move to turn the spotlight towards the sultry whisperings of singer Sky Edwards and the exceptional guitar of Ross Godfrey. The resulting funk-fueled fire of 2000's Fragments Of Freedom may not have been a huge success, but it paved the way for the group's more cohesive 2002 effort, Charango. 2005's The Antidote relies on a sound that is more orchestrated pop than synthetic dance music.