Ratatat

Ratatat is an instrumental project by two musicians, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast. The two had previously worked together under the name Cherry, but then started working on releasing a self-titled album to be released in 2004 using the name Ratatat.

How it works is that they plug a synthesizer, a guitar, and a bass directly into Evan Mast's PowerBook. What results is an an ingenious mesh of techno, instrumental, hip-hop, electronic, and pop sounds. Because their work wasn't costing them a lot of money and because they had no A&R to tell them what to do with their sound they were able to take some pretty artistic gambles. Fortunately they seemed to have won their bets are a successful music project was on its way.

All of their songs are completely instrumental with no vocals used at all. Typically I wouldn't find this type of music to be as appealing to me as it is. I'm an avid fan of voice and lyrics, however...Ratatat's use of contrast and change in melody within their songs keeps me listening with interested and amused ears.

In an interview with Fader Magazine, they said that when creating their music they start with a melody first always. After that, the order of layer varies from song to song. And as far as layering different sections, Evan Mast said "You kind of just get into each section, make it feel as full as possible and then realize that, 'Oh this is not the complete song,' and then you have to backtrack. It’s different with some songs because you are working horizontally.
Mike: We sort of try out every possibility, we’re kind of just playing around with things and then reorganizing over and over. You know it’s bad when you get bored listening to it."

One thing is certain, at least for me, that the music definitely never becomes boring. There are so many separate sounds to appreciate and then when all these integrating parts come together, its even that much more mind-blowing.

"Seventeen Years" on Youtube.com