Five Reasons I Still Adore Calvin & Hobbes
Susan Tedeschi - "Talking About"
Erin McCarley - "Pitter-Pat"
Paste presents An Indie Rock Alphabet Book
Live at Paste: Jolie Holland
With its ambitious cross-cultural rhythmic palate and the strongest melodies to date, Ratatat's LP3 is practically begging for MCs to jack and loop a beat in order to complete the cycle. In addition to the two Brooklynites' history of composing the sort of catchy squiggles of sound on their self-titled debut and Classics, synthesizer visionary Evan Mast and guitar god Mike Stroud make no secret of their love for hip-hop. Their two self-released volumes of Ratatat Remixes, featuring original beats, stand up to vocal tracks from icons (Biggie), troublemakers (Devin the Dude) and even the most pop-oriented rhymers (Kanye West).
A harpsichord can work equally well for Destiny's Child and Blur, but Ratatat are among the few artists who can find the common ground between the two styles on "Dura." These sorts of contrasts of past and present, and genres both straight and extremely bent have won them comparisons to Air and a couple other French duos that need no extra attention here. The drumless attack of 007-ready "Shiller," shows confidence and also a vision that will keep fellow instrumentalists on their toes. Like many LP3 tracks, "Mirando" still mines the trademark fuzzy guitar that has been the unifying "voice" of Ratatat's compositions since the duo unveiled "Seventeen Years," but it is only one of many building blocks for an infectious island rhythm. Somehow, the band allows for dabbling in dub ("Flynn"), as well as a piano jam that'll have you throwing tiki torches to the sky ("Bruleé").
Adventurous beat-mining producers like the aforementioned West could very well be using bits of several of these tracks for a Common beat before the year is finished. But even if that doesn't happen, keep this collection close: Someone's definitely going to try to steal your copy.
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Just to set things straight, Evan is NOT a Skidmore dropout. He earned a BS degree in 2000. I should know, I'm his mother.
Originally, this review incorrectly stated that "Ratatat's third collection of synth-rock instrumentals shows that these two Skidmore College dropouts are ready for a Graduation-type run." Evan Mast graduated from Skidmore College in 2000, as pointed out by a commenter, and the information could have been confirmed with a look here.