[Ratatat's LP3] is some kind of cosmic machine music, reflecting not just a stoner’s world of internalized minimalist headbanging but an entire universe of culture, texture, and possibility.
– Zeth Lundy, The Boston Phoenix
To call Ratatat Nintendo music, as most critics are wont
to do, is to sell the Brooklyn duo's powers short. Nintendos can't dance,
and they sure can't make a room sweaty in three minutes (note: perhaps the
Wii can, but not the old-school NES). Maybe the moniker is a decent enough
description of the whining eight-bit synths that filter through each of
Ratatat's three records, but it doesn't begin to describe the other styles
that swirl and tilt their way across the mix: big-time clipped drums lifted
straight from bounce and hip-hop, thundering power chords and dueling guitar
solos courtesy of 80s hair metal, squishy Beatles mellotron, and a trickle
of Indian tablas. All of the lines twist around one another to form some
sort of musical Oriental rug that no one would want to step on if only they
could keep from dancing.
The duo – guitarist Mike Stroud (a former touring member of Dashboard
Confessional) and programmer/bassist Evan “E*Vax” Mast – have
achieved a fair amount of notoriety, with their music and beats backing
everything from Notorious BIG remixes and Hummer commercials to Louis Vitton
fashion shows and DVS skateboarding videos. If the variation of that list
surprises you, it shouldn't; Ratatat make distinctly postmodern dance music,
appropriating classic sounds and scales into something that is at once familiar
and unlike anything you've ever heard. Likewise, their music videos sample
heavily from existing works, drawing visual remixes of war films and videos
from VH1 Classic. Like the music itself, the videos tend to focus in on
single, missable moments and rest there: the heavy sighing of a soldier
synchs with the whirry thump of a synthesizer in the clip for “Mirando,” “Flynn”'s
melancholy choir broods while Paul Simon stares into the
camera with a look of disbelief.
LP3, the group's most recent record, finds them stretching
the strings of their snythy machine, tying in gulping drums, singing autoharps,
and calm Western guitar runs, and peeking into the quiet patchwork of the
territory pioneered by Panda Bear on last year's Person Pitch; the dance
beats are still present, but they're girded by a spirit of well-traveled
consideration, a tranquil, contemplative spirit that comes with the realization
that the world extends beyond the coasts of North America. LP3 is a globetrotting,
timetravelling set that makes its runs through the Southwestern states,
India, eastern Europe, France, and Studio 54-era New York, sometimes in
a single song. The confluence of multicultural flourishes and the band's
trademark oomph creates a cleaner, more mature Ratatat that's just as concerned
with moving the brain as they are the feet.
If the dreamy melodies threaten to slow the dancefloor, there are enough party tracks on the group's 2004 self-titled debut alone to keep any party moving. When the nervy guitars and distorted drums of that album's instant-classic “Seventeen Years” come crashing, there shouldn't be a dry shirt in the crowd. Their two self-released remix records, where the group re-write the likes of Kanye, Biggie, and Jay-Z, are proof enough that Ratatat knows as well as anyone how to successfully walk the tightropes of rock 'n' roll, dance, and hip-hop.
-Marty Garner