Videos Of The Day: Ratatat

These have already made their way around the Internet, but I don’t think I had posted them, so here are some funny Ratatat vids. The first is “Mirando” with a video montage from the movie Predator:

And here is “Flynn” with a weird, cut up version of that Paul Simon music video featuring Chevy Chase:

Finally, here is that really awesome Bjork “Wanderlust” video, except the audio is the Ratatat remix:

Memorial Day Mash-Up

Athens Popfest, going down August 12th-16th, dropped their line-up over the weekend, as Athens, Ga superbloggers, Cable And Tweed, was all on top of it:

Roky Erickson & The Explosives, The Music Tapes, Elf Power, Dark Meat, Boyracer, The Apes, Bunnygrunt, Thee American Revolution, Circulatory System, My Teenage
Stride, The Faintest Ideas, We Versus the Shark, Casper & the Cookies,
Cryptacize, Ruby Isle, The Great Lakes, Fishboy, Cars Can Be Blue, Love
Letter Band, Andy From Denver, The Buddy System, The Smittens,
Supercluster, The Coathangers, The Selmanaires, Spring Tigers, Dead Confederate, Violet Vector & the Lovely Lovelies, Velcro Stars, Red Pony
Clock, Big Fresh, the Lolligags, Secret History, Judi Chicago, Hot Pants
Romance, Nana Grizol, The Sterns, Thrushes, Laminated Cat, Fat Planet, The
Ocelots, The Besties, Twin Tigers, The Afternoon Naps, Boy Genius, the Hotwalls, Amo Joy!, Oh Sanders, That’s My Daughter, Little Birds, A Faulty Chromosome, Panda Riot, Patience Please, Railcars, Tendaberry, One Happy Island, The Hat Company, The Young Untold, Bad Animal, Oh Fortuna, Good Graces, Night Driving in Small Towns, Umbrella Tree, Noisycrane, Bob Hay & the Jolly Beggars, Allison Weiss, Whistling School for Boys

Very nice. They are still planning on adding 16 more bands and a $60 festival pass will get you into all day and night shows. I plan to be there.

Bonnaroo is going to be nationally televised for the first time ever this year on Cable’s Fuse TV.

Daniel Johnston will be at The Variety Playhouse June 26th.

Brian Wilson has a new album dropping September 2nd.

Carla Bozulich‘s Evangelista and Xiu Xiu will be at The Drunken Unicorn August 23rd.

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A Random MP3 Trilogy

Here are a few of the hott tracks rolling around the big series of tubes:

There’ a new Beck album produced by Danger Mouse about to hit stores soon. Rumours say it could suddenly drop from the sky like In Rainbows or the new Nine Inch Nails albums, but not necessarily for free. It is tentatively titled Modern Guilt and is supposed to have a ’60s psychedelic feel. I’ve even heard rumours that Cat Power appears on it. I’m excited:

Beck : Chemtrails

Ratatat is another great artist with a new release dropping this summer. Everyone I know has fallen in love with these guys since their 2006 Classics blew up. In addition to creating high quality, crowd pleasing original instrumental jams, they do some stellar remixes, Volume 2 of which you can download for free from their myspace. LP3 hits stores July 8th, and here’s a preview:

Ratatat : Shiller

Finally, I have been jamming the new Islands album, Arm’s Way, hard since it came out yesterday. It certainly has its share of flaws, of which most everyone reviewing is paying a lot of attention, but there are a plethora of amazing things going on that have me hooked. Just like how many people who loved the Unicorns didn’t like the direction Islands took things originally, many people who were really into Return To The Sea may not have wanted them to go they way they did for this one, but if you take it for what it is, it kicks some major ass. They just did a Daytrotter session, including a Brian Eno cover, that you can check out here, but here’s a really different version of “The Arm” from it:

Islands : The Arm (Daytrotter session)

Live Review And Photos: Ratatat, 120 Days, Despot (4-10-07) The Loft

Last night, my Ohmpark buddies and I went to the best show I have seen yet at The Loft in Atlanta: Ratatat and 120 Days. Sugarkane dropped this band on me only a few weeks ago, and I have been trying to catch up. I found the crowd at the show to be an uncommon mix of indie hipsters and video-game styled music enthusiasts. I blame this on the venue’s proximity to Georgia Tech; perhaps one of the only ‘subculture’ groups in the city with as healthy an addiction to Internet celebrity and fanfare as the indie crowd. Those ‘old-wave’ synths and lo-fi sine waves really get those pencil pushers moving…

Ratatat pull an interesting array of fans together by using their old-school aesthetic to drive their rock star image and still somehow bring a heavy dose of hip-hop into their music. Personally, I love their take on some of the popular trends in music happening today; one being the http://www.8bitpeoples.com type synths. The other, of course, is the pervasive influence of hip-hop culture and how it has become an increasingly central part of mass entertainment culture through the Internet. Ratatat accomplishes a unique intersection of subcultures and styles without becoming confusing or undefined; they have a defined sound.

I had the hardest time explaining to my friend what made Ratatat better than other bands that have latched onto the 8-bit-synth trend/aesthetic (depends how much you scoff/respect it). I hate to say this, but it was the same thing that birthed rock into the mythic proportions it was to consume: the guitar. It makes the entire live show for a band that’s noise-space is 75% synthetic. Other bands have attempted this approach ( http://www.myspace.com/anamanaguchi to a further degree, for example), but not quite to the sweet spot of trendiness that Ratatat has found….

I should also mention 120 Days, who put on a great opening set. Probably pretty disappointed with American crowds; piles of guitar effects strung up with the analog synths proved these guys could play the trendiest dance club as easily as a a rock and roll dive. I was very impressed and ran home to check them out; I think most of the crowd was surprised.

Note from BiggieC: Ichuda got to the show after Despot was on. I personally enjoyed him very much. I was stoked to see he could rap without a hype man or DJ. His best song was “Get Rich or Try Dying.”

Also I’d like to thank Catherine for granting me a photo pass.

(Click for larger photos)

Despot

120 Days

Ratatat

2006 Album Previews

I’m going to sprinkle in a few songs from some of the albums off of my list:

Ratatat : Wildcat

Buy Classics Here

Liars : Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack

Buy Drum’s Not Dead Here

Girl Talk : Bounce That

Buy Night Ripper Here

Sugarkane’s Top 50 Albums of 2006

2006 was a great year for me, and the main reasons are mostly related to music. I decided to do this list in December because i wanted to learn about as much music as possible, and what I thought would take a few days ended up taking almost 2 months, but it was extremely educational for me and i feel very good about this list. There were so many albums that I would like to give props to and cutting it down to 50 was hard. On a technical note, I went by U.S. release date with the exception of Laura’s Radio Swan Is Down (It was released in Australia over a year ago and has no U.S. release date). Feel free to blast it:

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