Fresh leftovers from Old Soul’s kitchen

After the 2006 release of their sophomore album, Classics, Brooklyn electronic duo Ratatat pulled a Bob Dylan and The Band and ditched the city for a creative blowout in upstate New York. At Old Soul Studios in the Catskill Mountains, the duo of Evan Mast (producer and multi-instrumentalist) and Mike Shroud (guitarist) recorded about 30 tracks. Half of these were released as 2008’s LP3 and the other half, after two years of tweaking, will be released in two weeks as LP4.

Even though Ratatat recorded the two albums simultaneously, the band insists that LP3 and LP4 are to be understood as separate entities. Rightly so—these records are distinct, and LP4 is far from its predecessor’s leftovers.

In fact, LP4 is Ratatat’s most ambitious, conceptualized and impressive effort yet.

Ratatat has defined a style for themselves, rarely straying from catchy pop beats, heavy synth, blasting guitar riffs and samples from 1980s arcade games.

No previous release has so fully developed and expanded upon their expected sound. In LP4, Ratatat introduces a full string section and percussion instruments from around the world. This record is reputed to feature more instruments than ever before.

They also bring back the spoken word interludes utilized in their 1999 debut. One sample is actually in German (taken from Werner Herzog’s film Stroszeck) and describes keyboards.

The other vocal samples are courtesy of Linda Manz—a New York actress from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Only one of Manz’s samples is from a film. The rest are excerpts of a phone interview conducted by Mast while trying to secure rights to the sound bite he was using originally. Some of these interview selections are downright hilarious.

LP4 features a distinctly “world” sound, even more so than on LP3. “Bob Ghandi” and “Party With Children” feature some amazing percussion that sounds like you would be dancing around a fire rather than over a dance floor.

The sweet ukelele strums in “Mahalo” are charming, as are the crickets that open “Sunblocks.” The clear Eastern European influences in “Bare Feast” are intriguing to the mind and ear without drowning the guitar work you’d expect from Shroud.

Stand-out tracks are definitely “Neckbrace,” “Drugs” and “Grape Juice City.”

“Neckbrace” is a stomp from the get-go—an excellent dance track. Funky and fresh, this song and its effortless lead into the pensive “We Can’t Be Stopped” could easily be the soundtrack to a good orgasm and will definitely make you hit repeat.

“Drugs” begins with a soft string ensemble and then blasts into synthesizers and jagged guitar. At certain moments it calls to mind Daft Punk, but whatever Daft Punk experimented with, Ratatat developed into something new and different.

“Grape Juice City” sounds vaguely Indonesian, with percussion sounds like drumsticks on found objects. The track also features birdsong, beat boxing, an accordion and the sound Mario and Luigi make when they catch a mushroom and double in size.

Ratatat describes LP4 as “weird.” Weird is right, but so is excellent.