By Siddharth Jejurikar ’16, Entertainment Editor
This summer, electronic rock duo Ratatat released their first album in five years, Magnifique. Ratatat has been a major actor in electronic music since their 2004 self-titled album, Ratatat. They dominated in the mid-to-late 2000s; they released four studio LPs, two remix albums, and toured with The Killers, Daft Punk, and Björk. Most people know them best for the production work they did on the Kid Cudi song “Pursuit of Happiness” from the album Man on the Moon: The End of Day. Ratatat masterfully utilizes little more than guitar, percussion, and keyboard-synthesizers to create a unique sound in their almost entirely instrumental anthology. Magnifique stands out in not only style, but quality, as one of their best works. Bringing in a wide array of musical inspiration, Ratatat hoped to create an album entirely without filler or useless parts. Though the album feels a little too same-y in many parts, it remains to be very well crafted and extremely listenable overall.
Magnifique opens with a very lightheated introduction on “Intro”, using a simple-sounding piano melody over an easy-going guitar riff. The track is just over a minute long but does a great job setting the tone for the album as a whole, utilizing a laid-back, almost comical, tone. “Cream on Chrome” follows just after, with a style somewhat atypical of Ratatat. They use a much clearer and cleaner sound on their guitars for this track, as a side-by-side comparison with the track “Loud Pipes” from Classics would blatantly show. “Cream on Chrome” features a simple percussion line on loop with a diverse and mesmerizing guitar melody over it. Instantly Ratatat proves that they are sticking with their goal of creating an album that has nothing unneeded or extra, as this opening song evolves constantly and never feels like it’s dragging on. After comes the track “Magnifique”, with a much more prominent bassline and percussion. “Magnifique” balances out “Intro” and “Cream on Chrome” wonderfully with a much mellower feeling—utilizing both their newer, clean guitar sound and the rougher sound commonly seen on Ratatat’s older work. The album begins to dip slightly in quality as it settles into a predictable pattern on “Abrasive”, alternating back to the high energy, dance-rock tone that the album began with. Still, it does offer a lot of enjoyment as a track. Using layered guitars to create an incredibly fun barrage of complementing melodies, “Abrasive” works almost like a puzzle of intertwined tracks tying into each other brilliantly.
If someone told me a song can sound both drunk and amazing, I would disagree vehemently. That is, until I heard “Drift”. The song gives off a drooping, almost stumbling, sound could make anyone feel contented and pleasant. Making a weeping, steel-guitar sound paired with a simple bassline, the song marks as one of the two high points of the album. The second high-point is “Nightclub Amnesia”, which is by far my favorite song of the entire album. Much more rough and cutting than the rest of the album, the track is full of angst, emotion, and raw musical inventiveness. I can’t help but head bang a little when I hear the song’s stellar synthesizer, driving percussion, and edgy guitar line. “Rome” goes back to one of my all-time favorite Ratatat tracks, “Seventeen Years”, from the album Classics. “Rome” differs in tone from its predecessor but shares the same central idea that made “Seventeen Years” great. Both songs begin fairly simply, but, as the songs progress, pick up more and more layers— all surrounding that same central part. With each addition the song grows closer to completion, and, in the end, transforms into something truly beautiful. As the album winds to a close, Ratatat features a cover of Springwater’s “I Will Return”, adding that special Ratatat sound to it. Though some may criticize the decision to include a cover into an album, it does an amazing job bringing the album to a conclusion. Emotional and bittersweet, “I Will Return” means exactly what its name implies: Magnifique isn’t the last we’ve heart of Ratatat.
Magnifique is an incredibly cohesive and complex record. Layered instruments, sound texturing with samples, and delicate composition all go into a finished result that more or less accomplishes the goal of the album: to create a tight and incredible piece that has been gone through with a fine-toothed comb, completely free of all fluff. The record has frequent tonal shifts, with tracks like “Cold Fingers” (and it’s fast-paced guitar solo) getting your heart racing, and tracks like “Supreme”, with its island-music feel and slow tempo, letting you just kick-back and enjoy. I hope Ratatat makes well on their promise in “I Will Return”, giving us more works of absolute brilliance like Magnifique.
Sidd’s Recommendations:
Oracular Spectacular by MGMT: Marked by the instant radio-hit “Kids”, Oracular Spectacular is a fantastic album with a psychedelic-rock style comparable to Ratatat’s. Though inherently different due to MGMT’s use of vocals, the particular style and tone in the instrumentals is very similar to Magnifique
Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem: I will admit, Sound of Silver sounds nothing like Magnifique. But, while LCD Soundsystem takes on many more risks and gives of a much different sound from Ratatat, both use the same style of layering instruments for affect in contrasting/complementing melodies. And both do so magnificently.
