Ratatat - 'Ratatat' (XL)
3/5
By: Clara Burtenshaw
A voice that could have been ripped straight from the autistic vocal chords of Telly, from Larry Clark's disturbing New York movie opus 'Kids', comments: 'I've been rapping for about seventeen years,' an intro with no correlation to the sound that follows, apart from its containment of the track-title.
Seventeen years combines the unimaginable - a melody that would not sound out of place at an Elizabethan court, replete with '2001: A Space Odyssey' futuristic grooves, while the hypnotic head-nodding that follows will have you believe that that Brooklyn residents Mike 'Snake' Stroud and Evan 'E*Vav' Mast have, in Ratatat, created the most intricate slice of digi-pop genius since Daft-Punk's 'Discovery'.
Born of a combined love of Jay-Z, The Rolling Stones, Timbaland and Beethoven, these influences could not be any less evident in forty-five minutes of complex instrumental restraint and release. Though this collection of songs have a tendency to merge into one another seamlessly, with the album's repetitive centre broken by another seemingly pointless spoken interjection midway, closing tracks 'Spanish Armada' and 'Cherry' serve to restore the inventiveness and melodic diversity that earmarked this LP for greatness at the fore.
Technonerds in the know have called Ratatat a 'sing-along record without words', but refrain from Ratatat rotation, your voice will end up as f**ked as Telly's.
Artists in this article: Ratatat
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