Ratatat : LP4 :: Review

“LP4” is Ratatat’s most musically progressive album to date and “LP4” seems to be in love with the music that it contains.   Evan Mast and Mike Stroud, the duo who comprise Ratatat have topped their previous efforts of oft kilter electronic music by incorporating more instrumentation alongside their standard 8-bit influenced beats and rhythms.  This instrumentation elevates the songs with layers and slyly appears in the song taking the listener for an unexpected surprise.

“LP4” is flush with new ideas such as the samples of  dialog incorporated from Werner Herzog’s “Stroszek” and the tribal rhythms explored on “Bob Gandhi” and “Party With Children.”  “Sunblocks” and “Bare Feast” seem to be cut from the same cloth with their insistent mosquito hum but “Bare Feast” varies off into a nativist exploration that is echoed on  the heavily electro styling of “Grape Juice City.”  Ratatat closes the record with the tongue in cheek “Alps” featuring a sweet and sour string section laced epitaph accented by a repetitive bleepy and bloopy keyboard motif.

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