Audio, 18th July

Downstairs at Audio was a sell out for the latest offering from DJs-come-club night-come-gig promoters Blah Blah Blah. The draw for punters at this busy Friday night gig? Brooklyn-based hip-hop influenced electronic duo Ratatat are in town, even if producer Evan Mast and guitarist Mike Stroud actually consider themselves a punk band.

They’ve gained a name for themselves in electro circles for support slots with Interpol, CSS, Daft Punk, Franz Ferdinand and Björk (whose track Wanderlust they’ve remixed) and released three albums to day, including the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin titled ‘LP3’, which was released earlier in the month. Plenty of longhaired male residents of the city turned out to enjoy some head-popping and toe-tapping. Even Natasha ‘Bat for Lashes’ Khan, a Mercury Music Prize nominee, was spotted amongst the crowd.

After an increasingly tight show from support act The Blueskies, the headliners took to the stage in front of looped video projections. Ratatat had a little keyboard help on tour from one of the biggest hairdos I’ve seen on stage in a while; head-banging while sporting a big afro pulled focus from the original band members. Ratatat may proclaim themselves “not very good singers” but the lyric-free style of the set sometimes left us craving some lead singer-style posturing to get the crowd going. Not that the gig fell on unappreciative ears. The eerie bleeps of new release ‘Mirando’ featured early on in the set, but previous single ‘Shiller’ didn’t. The sell out crowd enjoyed highlight tracks in the shape of the upbeat ‘Lex’. ‘Loud Pipes’ and ‘Wildcat’ also stood out before the two tune encore.
With rumours they’ll be taken under the producing wings of The Neptunes soon, make sure you listen up.

Words by Andrea Fox
Photograph by Sam Hiscox