Song: Ratatat - Party With Children
RATATAT - LP4
Can’t believe i’m reviewing this album, what a privilege. Ever since hearing ‘Mirando’ and ‘Mumtaz Khan’ (the latter of which was my alarm for every weekday of last year, and i’m still addicted!) i’ve been looking forward to new Ratatat. Great band name. But on the downside, yet another electronic album with an unoriginal title (first Crystal Castles, now this!).
If you like hip-hop and/or R&B but not the lyrics/rappers they usually come with, Ratatat is the band for you. Hailing from the Brookyln borough of New York City are the guitarist Mike Stroud and producer/bassist Evan Mast. You’ve never heard electronics like these, the catchiest of drumbeats, voice and odd sound samples that will make you go WOW.
This is instrumentalism at its best, and there are a lot of instruments the pair use which compliment the sliding electric guitar and chunky synths. As well as these, I hears with my big ears something beginning with indian tabla drums, harpsichord, mandolin, ukulele, pianoforte, a string orchestra? I can’t begin to imagine what makes the rest of the sounds, but it’s all amazing. Perfect production and timing with each beat and note.
First track ‘Bilar’ runs into the piano-chord driven ‘Drugs’ with a lispy german gentleman talking very interestingly about something or other. Neckbrace starts with an american woman’s voice saying “They were just getting ready to swing, knocking me out with a baseball bat!”, and the very same voice is later heard saying “Yeah, and I used to wait for people after school and beat them up…if I didn’t like them, if they were pretty or they smiled too much!”.
My favourite from the album, and soon-to-be-single-release ‘Party With Children’ is fantastic, and the equivalent of last album’s ‘Mirando’. It contains a young voice at the end saying “I’ve been thinking what to do with my future. I could be a mud-doctor, checking out the earth…underneath”. ‘Bob Gandhi’ sounds suitably south asian with its terrific drums and memorably tuneful guitar solo, and Mahalo sounds hawaiian (well, what would you expect with a name like that, and a ukulele!) and has some wonderful smooth guitar playing too. There’s some noticeable vocodering of a low voice throughout the album which sounds like it’s scatting, the way it’s sampled (particularly on ‘Neckbrace’ and ‘Grape Juice City’).
LP4 will be released by XL Records on Tuesday 8th June. The dancefloor-filling duo have put a lot into this, and it is well worth your pennies to purchase. LP4 = 10/10 Ratatat!
