“Wild Goosechase Expedition,” their first album in three years, is nothing short of remarkable, and after a dozen or more spins is guaranteed a spot on my year-end list of favorite albums. It’s that good. Continue reading →

Beirut, the band born out of the bedroom of Santa Fe teenager Zach Condon in the early 2000s, has come a long way fast. The night after I spoke with Condon by phone from his hotel in Belgium, where he was situated for a European press junket, Beirut played a show with Arcade Fire in London’s Hyde Park. Continue reading →

Jonathan Spottiswoode is back … but without His Enemies. The Englishman in New York has dispensed with his sprawling band for his latest record - Piano 45 – which he releases tomorrow night at Joe’s Pub.  Indie Sounds got the scoop. Five … Continue reading →

Some CDs beg to be played over and over again. This is one of those times when the disc absolutely refuses to go back into its case and demands to go back in the player. Normally I cannot listen to an album more than once a day but Larkin Grimm’s third album makes for a rare exception. It is perfectly performed and the recording itself is flawless, this is one of those rare albums that impresses from every conceivable angle. Continue reading →

For those of you who thought the freak-folk movement was missing a dollop or two of genuine freakiness, Larkin Grimm is your girl. On Parplar, her Young God debut, Grimm, the product of Appalachian hippie cult parents and a Yale education Continue reading →

This untamed, moon-worshiping, blood-and-guts Appalachian gypsy is a peculiar folkie. Larkin Grimm’s 15-song debut for Michael Gira’s Young God label is informed by sex magic, the Holy Ghost, and lizards Continue reading →

Boston band Apollo Sunshine first appeared on the radar in 2003, when it released promising debut Katonah. Two years later, in 2005, the band stepped it up with an impressive self-titled sophomore album that wound up at #13 on Paste’s Best Albums of the Year list. Continue reading →

Ratatat recorded LP3 in a ghost-ridden house in upstate New York called Old Soul Studios, owned by a fedora-wearing music fanatic who goes by the name “The Wolf.”
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I wonder if anyone else has secretly taken a RATATAT song and recorded their own vocal track over it. I did. In 2004 I had just returned from a literal mind-blowing journey in Peru and I was oddly placed in the basement of my ex-neighbors house in the suburbs of Nowhere, Kansas. I laced that track. Continue reading →

New York Electronic double act Mike Stroud and Evan Mast better known as Ratatat released their new album LP3 through XL earlier this year, the follow up to 2006′s Classics and 2004′s self-titled debut. Continue reading →

LP3 is the third studio album from Ratatat, the follow-up to 2006′s Classics and 2004′s self-titled debut. Since the release of Classics, Ratatat have toured relentlessly, headlining shows around the world. They were asked to open for Daft Punk at Los Angeles Sports Arena back in June 2007, before they jetted off to play shows in Hawaii and Japan. Continue reading →

When you learn about how one of your favourite albums was recorded, it’s hard not to enthuse about it all every time you mention the record. Take Bon Iver for example, rooted Continue reading →

Ratatat have been slowly causing a fuss in the musical expertee community. Third-record, aptly titled ‘LP3′ is on the brink of finding itself in all good record stores and all good people’s end of year lists – it’s their most instantaneous, interesting album to date and we got hold of one half of the duo, Continue reading →

As Ratatat, Evan Mast and Mike Stroud have spent the last five years tearing down the Continue reading →

Last fall, while you were still debating whether LCD Soundsystem or Battles was the best electro-rock band of 2007, Ratatat— Brooklyn’s other white meat—were upstate Continue reading →

The record, which went under Mysteries of the Old Soul as a working title, was recorded during the summer of 2007 in the Catskill Mountains, in a “house inhabited by spirits” and located next door to the home of the original Uncle Sam. Continue reading →

Ratatat stormed onto the scene in 2004 with their debut single ‘Seventeen Years’, which Continue reading →

Ratatat: frequency bad-asses on LP3 by Samuel Strang Whereas most acts get berated for churning out material with the same formula, Brooklyn instrumental duo Ratatat’s return with LP3 and the same hurdy-gurdy waltz they’ve always had avoids such a pitfall, … Continue reading →

Everybody’s favorite NYC electrorock duo, Ratatat, is about to get less rock/guitar-oriented than ever for their third album Continue reading →

RATATAT’S music is a little unconventional. There is no singing, no verse-chorus-verse structures and the duo’s sound seems based around a clash between machine-made beats, baroque-inflected classical music and the joys of hair-metal guitar. It has been difficult to work … Continue reading →

Super-hip New York duo Ratatat left the confines of Gotham’s minimalist electro glam for the wilds of the Catskills on their third album LP3. It emerged as a neo-colonial traipse, coloured by tribal rhythms and quaint harpsichord Continue reading →

Larkin Grimm – Parplar Review By Dennis Cook Curioser and curioser. Opening out like a celestial telescope and retracting into spaces of cavernous privacy and pecking glossolalia, Larkin Grimm isn’t your typical girly singer-songwriter. The child of hippies once part … Continue reading →

Just recounting the brief synopsis of Larkin Grimm’s life—that she grew up in a cult until the age of six, then spent the rest of her childhood in the Appalachians, frequently sleeps outdoors, has no permanent address and went to Yale art school on a full scholarship Continue reading →

When Ratatat blew into the music scene a few years back, many (including myself) were simply in awe of their dynamic synth guitar arena club power beats. Classics was an instant classic Continue reading →

The follow-up to 2006’s Classics longplayer is called LP3 and is out on the 7th of July. How does it differ from its predecessor? Well, where Classics was, as its portentous name might suggest, recorded over a period of months Continue reading →

Once Upon a time….err…..um… About 3 years ago I moved from Cedar Grove, North Carolina to Brooklyn, New York. I used to frequent the “old” Living Room (in Manhattan), a shoe-box-sized spot on the corner of Stanton & Allen Continue reading →