ratatat

A Grand Celestial Music

Quite the musical week here at tunequest. A little more than usual.

First the Ratatat show, now a symphony performance. The Atlanta Symphony put in a wonderful performance of Holst’s Planets. From the raw power of Mars to the ethereal ambiance of Nepture, the orchestra dispatched all seven symphonic poems with passion and exuberance. "Wow", I say "Wow."

Parts of Mercury felt a little bit off, but it could have just been the acoustic of the hall (which honestly aren’t that good; let’s hope the new hall gets built soon). It didn’t matter though; by the end of Mars, I was willing to forgive just about any mis-step. The full force of the orchestra performing only a few feet away literally gave me chills. Man, it was good.

I’m stoked for this ASO season.

RATATATL*

Ratatat ATL

I just got home from Ratatat’s performance at The Earl in East Atlanta. Awesome awesome stuff. This band is phenomenal, from concept to execution, and they kick it ten ways live. I can now add Ratatat to the list of bands I’ve seen more than once. Hoorah.

I would have liked to record the show, but my dinky Maxell voice recorder for iPod was overwhelmed the sheer amount of volume as was themodernista. I got nothing but noise and static from it.

Boo.

Hopefully, I got some decent pics from my cell phone (i doubt they’re that good though), but it’s late now and I’m off to bed.

The show was fronted by Panther and The Envelopes.

* coined by themodernista at the show.

ratatat makes the world a better place

I. am. being. slowly. driven. insane. emphasis on the slowly driven.

Seriously, if you wish to maintain your sanity, do not drive in Atlanta, ever. But especially avoid the interstates. and the access roads. and the side streets. and all intersections.

If you give those places a wide berth, you will find yourself infinitely less frustrated with your life.

But if you cannot manage that, make sure you roll down your windows and crank up the Ratatat. You’ll be humming “germany to germany” Ratatat - Ratatat by the time you walk in the door.

::

UPDATE: I had been planning on writing how a shortened work-day was another great way to maintain your precious sanity. But when traffic at 2-fucking-p.m. is as bad, nay, worse than it was at 8:30 am, well, no amount of creature comforts can make up for that. Not Ratatat’s crispy beats or their wailing guitars. It’s simply impossible.

No, not even kim deal has the power to save you.

The Classics of Ratatat

This is exactly what a sophomore album should be. It has everything that made the debut so fresh and engaging, while adding nuance and complexity that show a clear maturation of sound, yet is not so over-indulgent so as to become foreign and off-putting.

I refer, of course to Ratatat’s recently released second album: Classics.

One might argue that it takes a particularly confident or arrogant band to name an album “Classics,” especially so early in their career. But I think the boys know that they’re onto something genuinely inspired and magnificent. The band not only manages to live up to the album’s title, but they exceed all expectations.

For evidence, download yourself some free mp3s of their singles: Lex and Wildcat.

My Ratatat Fix: Live at Lee’s Palace in Toronto

My lowly 15gb iPod, maxed to its capacity, can only store about 2000 songs at a time. At the moment, it houses albums ranging from 0-N (not including albums that begin with ‘the’). Thus, I have not had any Ratatat grace my eardrums in quite some time. And man, i have been jonesin’ for it, with no relief in sight.

But in this junkie’s darkest hour, I stumbled upon a ray of light called CBC radio 3, with its vending machine of archived performances available for all kinds of streaming pleasure. God bless those Canadians; they had a 2004 performance by those electro-synth-rockers queued up and waiting, just for me.

Now I can slip on my headphones and have a prolonged and gentle heroin shot of that driving melodious Ratatat sound and wait in anticipation of their album’s arrival on the tunequest.

Addendum (9:58pm): just discovered that the iTunes music store has a heretofore unknown (to me) Ratatat b-side: "Noose." Yeah, I had a couple free downloads; yeah, this was one of them; yeah, it’s good, very good.