For this review, the ghosts in the machine here at Big Rock Candy Mountain have decided to try something new, and have two of us review it at the same time, in the same piece.

Screwy was the first to listen to it and subsequently passed it or YouTube links on to both Ahnìon and The Worm Spittoon for their perusal.

The Worm Spittoon was supposed to write something for this also – but capricious as they are – we recieved a review of the Blind Dead boxset instead. Which is a bit weird, considering how much they raved about the album.

If we can ever rescue the alcohol sodden pages from Spittoon’s book lined cave of mystery, we’ll amend this to include them.

So here we go – the HipHop equivalent of a review.

Screwy

Often when you receive advance/review/free copies of things, you don’t expect much. There is so much tat out there. To put it simply; It is hard to say good things about bad shit.

I’ve made this easy on myself, I tend to review only things I’ve liked. An easy way out I know, but hey, everybody is trying, no point in pissing all over them unless what they are doing is truly offensive. Just ignore it, hope it disappears.

Because you show me someone who enjoys pulling apart things people have put work into – and I’ll show you a miserable son of a fuck – who falls into that murder grey area between teachers and the people that do.

Granted – I would like nothing more than to while my hours away tearing small chunks from the plastic botox fuckers people like Simon Cowell force upon us. The push of modern music is the audio equivilant of how they used to hold down Suffragetes and force a rubber tube down their throat.

But it’d be too easy and giving them time means giving them space and giving them space means acknowledging they exist. Ratatat are a two piece band that span so many genres I’m not even going to bother. They just are. They also are – Mike Stroud (guitars and producer) and Evan Mast (bass and synthesizers). They were founded in 2001 and anything else nitty-gritty you want to know about them you can find on Wikipedia. The most important thing needed to be taken from this lil review infomercial bit is that they play their own instruments.

They had been playing about the ether, and I’d heard them before – just not enough to register them properly – until I was given this album.

In some ways, now that I have listened to it non-stop for over two months. I can find likenesses. The album itself is reminiscent of the genius of Bentley Rhythm Ace. With just bits of Anubian Lights, it also has smidgens of Daft Punk and echoes of what Holy Fuck are doing.

I could go on about this band, and take the album apart track by track. It is instrumental, it is electronic – it is funk – it nears orchestral and it is instrument driven and sometimes the sample is essential – it is big beat and it is soft strings – it is beautiful and I have not been able to stop listening to it since I received it.

There is not a song I can skip.

This is what music sounds like in my idealized future, where Bentley Rhythm Ace released a third album and John Bonham isn’t dead.

It is a future of right choices and aspiration.

It is a future where jetpacks happened and we got proper videophones.

I’m not going to say much more about it – tell you about it – just recommend that if you are just a little bit eclectic, to give this work of art a chance.

I gave the one sentence review earlier. So I figured I had to pad this out. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get my headphones on, it’s the future here and I have things to listen to while I work.

Because out here – in the future – we listen to Ratatat.

Ahnìon

This should be the sound of the 21st century.

It’s cool, it’s smart, it’s technically brilliant and imaginative, but above all: it’s got soul.

Ratatat have managed that elusive feat of synthesis; to fuse old and new, through creative and innovative spirit, into something new. There are clear traces of every decade since the forties in the sound on LP4, but none of them sound dated.

My few gripes are that the frequency spectrum does feel a bit too compressed, and the incessant beat-wrangling is at times like watching a child-prodigy with ADHD play with Lego – you never get a chance for a segment to settle in and bloom until its torn apart and turned into something else.

All in all, a magnificent piece of work. All kittens in the litter happily suckling mommy’s teats.

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City Discs

Big Rock Candy Mountain’s copy of Ratatat was provided by Mr. Craig O’Halloran – the manager of City Discs. Situated in Temple Bar. City Discs is Dublin’s premiere Independent music shop and, may I add, supplier of electronic music beyond par (well, for me anyway). With a vast array of both first and second hand CDs and vinyl – if they don’t have it, City Discs will do their very best to get it for you – which is a boon for us who have credit cards stuck in permanent comas. Often, I just walk in and say I’m in the mood for something like this and leave with a pile Craig has handpicked. Support them. The small shops, run by people like Craig, with biblical knowledges of music, must never disappear.

Oh and it looks a little bit like this:

City Discs
The Granary Unit 2,
Temple Bar Lane South,
Dublin 2
(01) 6330066