Ratatat - Presents Remixes Vol. II (XL)
4/5
By: Chris Pratt
As anyone who works the nine-to-five grind will know, it's important to have a hobby to break up the monotony, and it seems that this rule applies even if your day job is touring the world as one of indie-rock's best live bands.
Evan Mast and Mike Stroud - the two halves of New York electro-rockers Ratatat - while away the time between crafting party-starting instrumental jams by crafting yet more party-starting instrumental jams on which they place vocal tracks from the great and the good of hip-hop. In truth the templates for the backing tracks on 'Remixes Vol. II' differs very little from those for last year's 'proper' Ratatat album, 'Classics.' The addictively bombastic treated guitars, the sporadic synth squelches and the whip-crack snare drum are all present and correct, glued tightly together by the pair's uncanny knack for achieving the perfect combination of rhythm and melody.
Many of these beats improve on the original recordings, no doubt due to Mast's and Stroud's fresh perspective in comparison to many rap producers - see the ACDC-esque reworking of Biggie's 'Party & Bullshit' for indisputable evidence. Thankfully they don't attempt to 'indie-fy' the songs - one could quite easily imagine anything on here being spun by Westwood and fitting in snugly alongside the big name producers' output.
The majority of the vocal tracks are taken straight from the mainstream (TI, Young Jeezy) with nods to the old guard (Jay-Z, Notorious BIG) and a couple of freestyles from the leftfield (former Anti-Pop Consortium member Beans, Despot). So if you're not impressed by the fighting talk that dominates much of modern rap then this probably isn't for you - even if you are Ratatat's biggest fan. The rest of us, however, can sit back and enjoy an eclectic combination of musical styles that should be the norm, rather than the genre-specific conveyor-belt bands clog up our radio frequencies on a daily basis.
In fact the only problem with this undeniably strong selection is that it will be inevitably marketed squarely at indie fans, many of whom will pass swiftly over this in favour of straight up guitar-rock. Meanwhile the hip-hop aficionados who would more likely appreciate what the duo have put together here will, for the most part, remain unaware of Ratatat and their obvious talents.
Legally download three tracks from 'Remixes Vol. II' HERE.
Artists in this article: Ratatat
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