Cloves and Fedoras: Go listen to the magnificent "Magnifique"

Time to go electric.

Cloves and Fedoras is SeedSing's reviews for little known pieces of pop culture (or older pieces).  Feel free to contact us with your own submissions of undiscovered gems that must be known.

On July 17th Ratatat released their fifth studio album, "Magnifique".

I just bought it yesterday, July 26, and I'm hear to tell you, it's pretty great. It's a return to form for Ratatat. That's not to say that their last couple of albums haven't been good, in fact they're pretty great as well. But on "Magnifique". they return to their guitar heavy electronic sound. I'm not big on electronic music, I like DJ's, but DJ's like DJ Shadow or DJ Nu Mark, not DJ's like Girl Talk or Deadmau5. Their music is too electronic, too many samples and too disco-y for my taste. DJ Shadow and DJ Nu Mark are like musicians, because the samples they use and then turn into a song, actually sound like a song, not like some garbage you hear in a club, where all you hear is bass and everyone listening and dancing is on E. Ratatat's version of electronic music on the other hand is guitar driven. This is what seperates them from other electronic musicians. All their songs feature guitars as the main instrument. Both members play guitar as well. So, we have electronic music, they use drum machines and other staples of the genre, but each and every song has a lead guitar. I think this is what piqued my interest when I was first given a Ratatat album. I'm not crazy about electronic music, as I said before, but throw some cool, good guitar playing in, and I'm down.

The great thing about "Magnifique" is, every song has hard driving guitar and it's some damn good guitar playing. Even the first song, titled "Intro" and the last song, titiled "Outro" have small guitar riffs and each of these songs are less than one minute long. There's still samples and the voices talking are the only "lyrics" you get in the entire 14 song record, but there's still plenty of excellent guitar in two songs that last less than one minute long. The first single off the record, "Cream on Chrome" is classic Ratatat. The song is totally guitar driven, with a cool, sliding type effect being used and the sound of the guitar is muddy, but in a good, clean way. This was a great choice for the first single off this album.

"Magnifique" also has two of the longest songs ever recorded by Ratatat. "Nightclub Amnesia" comes in at 6 minutes, 17 seconds. The intro to this song has a very interesting, loopy guitar sound. It sounds like a song that should be on a boss level for Super Mario Brothers. The song doesn't feel that long. There's really cool samples and the drum machine is top notch for this tune. The only thing that could've made "Nightclub Amnesia" better was if it was longer. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. This song is really excellent. "Rome" comes in at 5 minutes, 32 seconds. It's not as good as "Nightclub Amnesia", but it's still pretty decent. There's a drop in the middle of the song, where the music fades out. My son asked if it was over and I told him, just keep listening, they're going to crush this song for the last 2 minutes. And that's exactly what happens. They use great samples, the drum machine is strong again and the guitar riffs are top notch.

I really enjoy this record as a whole. Ratatat, to me, is like listening to Radiohead, but no lyrics. I love Radiohead, they're musical geniuses, and Ratatat's sound reminds me of Radiohead's instrumentation. Both trippy and both really good. As I said before, this is an instrumental album, but it's never boring. The way they play and write and make music is fascinating and I just wish more people knew about Ratatat. They're really proficient musicians and they deserve the critical acclaim that should be coming their way. Especially after releasing "Magnifique". This album is excellent.

Check it out and I promise you, you won't be disappointed.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of The X-Millennial Man Podcast. He has plenty of guitars and not drum machine, yet. Follow him on twitter @tykulik