Getting 'a lot freer'

Ratatat on expanding their instrumental music

 

 

PROFILE. When it comes to instrumental electronic music, sometimes its biggest drawback can also be a great asset. When you free a composition from the specificity of lyrical framework, it opens up a vast space into which listeners can pour their own intentions. In that sense Brooklyn-based duo Ratatat's trippy, electronic/guitar bangers, ambient twiddle-dee-dee and brow-furrowing beat compositions are both fraught with potential and devoid of meaning.

On their first two releases Ratatat drew from a variety of musical and cultural touchstones — hip-hop, hair-metal riffage and IDM — to carve out a unique, but ultimately familiar space. Instantly recognizable parts harmonizing and playing off one another into something unheard. On the most recent “LP3” they moved that sound further afield, recontextualizing their identifiable signatures into a broader global whole. Guitarist Mike Stroud seems to have sent his guitar backpacking around the world, while producer Evan Mast's synths kept up a frantic time-jumping excursions into the past and future.

“Leading up to that record we were listening to music from all over the place,” says Mast. Syria, Iran and Iraq in particular. “Every different culture has its own approach to music, and some of it is so different than what we're used to. It can be really inspiring.”

When the framework of a group's music is so potentially omnivorous, it becomes easier to incorporate those far flung styles. “Ideally we can take it in any direction,” says Mast. “But we have our limitations. We got a lot better when we were making 'LP3.' I think we were more open to really different ideas that we probably wouldn't have followed through on on 'Classics.' We got a lot freer. To me that's a more exciting way to think about music.”

Another lesson they picked up along the way was the benefits of speed. “On some of our older stuff we were taking months to write some of those songs,” he says. “I think when you spend that long on a track it overcomplicates it sometimes because you're trying to keep yourself entertained while your doing it. On 'LP3' we spent a day or two days, and it's more focused because of that.”

Focusing the songs live can be an issue as well sometimes. Since most of their recording process is a system of adding layers upon layers, the band, who are performing as a duo on the current tour, often have to edit themselves. If anything is lost in translation their growing audiences don't seem to have noticed. Opening for Daft Punk and Bjork set the bar pretty high in terms of audiences however. “Those were  kind of like the dream shows. After that it was like, we should stop opening for people because it's not going to get any better than that.”

They've moved on to full headliner status by now though, selling out larger venues this time around than ever before. “It's pretty rad. Our first tour was opening for Interpol in all these rooms that seemed enormous, and now we're playing the same ones headlining. It's a good feeling. We've come a long way.”

Ratatat
Monday, 8 p.m.
House of Blues
Lansdowne St., Boston
MBTA: Green Line to Kenmore
SOLD OUT