Ratka Against The Machine

When I here something like this, something that makes me sit up and go fuck yeah, I figure everyone must be talking about it. After all, most of the stuff everyone is talking about makes me sit back and go huh. The good folks (they could be bad folks, actually, I don't know them) over at Treble wrote about this new record by a Brazilian band called Ratka (link). You're a smart person. You can listen for yourself.

The review's great (the phrase "psychedelic witches" was all it took to send me scrambling to their Bandcamp). I'm not sure I get the Factory/4AD comparisons though. To me, it sounds like early Animal Collective in hell (a show I would definitely see; I'd even pay an extra $20 to do some of the torturing), everything distorted and processed through delay pedals being abused within an inch of their existence. Or maybe Laurel Halo on a Pharmakon trip? Anyway, it's white-knuckle, blasted, and beautiful.

But a quick Google search brings back next to nothing on this Brazilian band. The album is available on Iron Lung records, who obviously haven't thrown the proper amount of $$$ at the proper PR firm (this is, in our opinion, a plus). Here's a link to their site. Buy this album. Hell, go buy the label's entire fucking catalog, you RMD-collecting trust-fund son-of-a-hedge-fund-manager.

This record feels like an appropriate response to being alive in 2019. And you want to talk to me about fucking Weyes Blood, a Sarah McLachlan without the sense of melody? Get the fuck out of here. Go sell that shit somewhere else.