Ratatat "Classics" (XL)
By Trey Perkins
Tuesday. Sep 26, 1:00 PM
The sweetest hybrid of prog rock and IDM known to man.

Step aside, Rick Wakemen of Yes. Walter Carlos Williams (or is it Wendy, you gender-bending asshole?), I don’t think so. There’s a new group in town and their mastery of vintage synthesizers is par excellance. They’re called Ratatat, and they’ve just released a new album entitled Classics. Picture a huge modular synth that would give Bob Moog 18 consecutive wet dreams with eleventy billion cables sprouting out of every possible input jack. Attenuators, low-frequency oscillators, lag processors and the like, all being employed for one reason and one reason only: to make the sweetest hybrid of prog rock and IDM known to man.

But it ain’t a game of vintage synthesizers, either. No, no. Why, if it were just a sweet-ass modular synth, you’d sound all smart at an art fag party by reply: “But I already have Switched on Bach and The Well Tempered Synthesizer, and my dad promised to give me Isao Tomita’s electronic rendering of Stravinsky’s Firebird along with Bruce Haack’s Electronic Lucifer” (ok, I’ve mentioned enough obscure electronic synth shit to garner $400 in cultural capital). There’s an ever-expanding palette of instrumentation at Ratatat’s disposal: from harmony guitars and Hawaiian steel string guitars to well planned out samples and drum programming. And sure, in the past, I’ve done quite a bit of badmouthing in regards to drum programming. Why, with modern technology and a reasonable adderol, it’s possible to become the next Richard D. James. Ratatat stand apart in terms of competition because they don’t let the programming get in the way of solid guitar wizardy, addictive melodies, and fresh sounding synthesizers.

Yet, in it’s own way, Classics is just as much a product of mid-‘70s stoner prog rock as it is a product of the digital age. Take the epic sound of “Montanita” and try to avoid comparisons between the heavy hitting riffage of a Bob Fripp era-King Crimson. “Tacobel Canon” (an obvious play on the wedding staple, Pachebel’s “Canon in D Major”) serves as an incredible closer, exemplifying everything the duo is capable of. A tight composition as it is, it is only enhanced by taught drum programming, and you can hear the high pitched low frequency oscillation manipulate every wave form. What do we learn from Classics? Well, the title is pretty damn appropriate: they’re just as much backward thinking as they are forward thinking.
www.ratatatmusic.com
www.xlrecordings.com

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Trey Perkins

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