Ok, I now realize, on 13th January 2011, that I’m quite the hypocrite. After apparently swearing that I would write every weekend, I somehow managed to put this off until the new year itself. So after coming back to college, which feels great, and spending two extremely long boring weeks at home, I’ve sat down in my courtyard to attempt writing another post.
I don’t really listen to that much of electronic, apart from the likes of Mr. Scruff and LCD soundsystem, but I was recently introduced to a cool electronic band called Ratatat. Wikipedia tells me that they’ve existed for quite some time, and have already released four albums. So I’m clearly not listening to something very new, but it’s worth a listen anyway.
I think what Ratatat essentially has attempted is to mix various different genres of music into one by providing electronic beats and groovy bass lines as the foundation on which the rest is built. Most bands usually tend to screw up and compromise on both genres when attempting to mix them, but Ratatat, having a professional guitarist as part of their band, have done quite a good job. The best part of their music is that it ISN’T REPETITIVE, unlike most electronic bands. Listening to each album on end isn’t boring at all; in fact, it’s quite entertaining to see how they change from album to album. There’s about three of them that I really liked.
The first album I have is called Classics, and this contains some fairly chilled-out electronic/post-rock music. The music ranges from the very relaxing “Nostrand” which starts out as easy going gradually incorporating electric guitar riffs making it a lot more energetic. Songs such as “Wildcat” have the same transition in them, which makes the music on this album really interesting. There’s also the anthem-reminiscent “Loud Pipes”, which is one of their best selling singles.
Ratatat remixes Vol. 1 is a really cool album, because Ratatat begins to combine hip-hop with electronic music and do a pretty brilliant job. The song “Fix Up”, which was originally performed by English rapper Dizzee Rascal has been given a remix on this album, and quite frankly it’s a lot better than the original. Adding that catchy synthesizer riff in the background and making the whole song faster, has made it more energetic and a lot more pleasant to listen to. Another really cool remix on the album is their version of “Dirty Rider” by L.O.X. Basically, ordinary hip-hop songs have been made a lot better by adding unorthodox electronic beats. Plus, they’ve made most of the songs such that they can be danced to, unlike their original versions, thus showing a huge contrast from their original chill-out music.
The album “9 Beats” is probably the best album they’ve made. The songs are so fucking trippy, that I couldn’t pay attention after a while and simply drifted off. For example, the songs “Three” and “Four” are insanely stoner; the deep, electronic bass lines and the bits and pieces of electronic tinkles here and there make the songs pretty fantastic. On the other hand, there are songs such as “Seven” (Ok, I realize how idiotic it sounds to mention songs in the form of numbers now) which are kind of bouncy and reggae-like, and there is one particular song, “Two” which sounds like Reggaeton, heavily influenced by electronic.
To put it all together, Ratatat’s covered quite a bit of ground musically, in that they’ve explored and succeeded in trying various types of genres. They’ve pretty much proved the point that Electronic doesn’t have to be an annoying synth-keyboard riff backed by a club beat all the time.
