Ratatat: Ratatat [XL RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

This XL Recordings LP comes in a gatefold jacket. Pitchfork gave the debut 8.4, and "Seventeen Years" became one of the most licensed instrumentals of the decade, turning up in Cloverfield and Soccer AM.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• XL Recordings edition

About the album

Ratatat recorded their debut album in Evan Mast's Crown Heights apartment, on a laptop, between 2001 and 2003. Mast and guitarist Mike Stroud, who met at Skidmore College, used it to build a sound of their own: harmonized guitar leads that sing like a vocalist, sitting on top of fat, crunchy beats.

"Seventeen Years" is the calling card, a riff so catchy it ended up in skate videos. "El Pico" and "Desert Eagle" strut, "Lapland" and "Everest" go somewhere wistful, "Spanish Armada" adds French horn, and "Germany to Germany" became a single in its own right. "Cherry" nods to the duo's original name. It's almost all instrumental, with a few spoken bits from Young Churf.

The album came out on XL in April 2004 and sent Ratatat on tour with Interpol. Metacritic logged a score of 72, and "Bustelo" went on to soundtrack a run of Jaguar commercials. Twenty-odd years on, it still makes a strong case for getting the band back together in someone's living room.

Also at Kops: more Ratatat on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings (cat# XLLP 172), the 2004 album.