- Strangely captivating gonzo pop music from a mystery duo on Halcyon Veil.
- If Rat Section were a writer, they'd be Hunter S. Thompson—such is the absurdity of the story they're trying to tell. Ratty Sleigh Johnny and Soopi told me over email that they first met back in Warsaw in 1984 at a karaoke bar, where they sang Barry Manilow's "This One's For You" and then got talking over "a pint of wine." They went on to produce music together which their dedicated fan group, Club Rodentia, archived only to lose it all in a fire (in Venice, apparently). Full marks for a colourful backstory. The duo take the Gen Z mentality of "it didn't happen unless it's on social media" to the point where you can't really be sure whether their industrial record What Stays In Vegas is their debut release, or the latest in a long line of music spanning decades. Though it's probably the former, answering it becomes a question of whether you're in-the-know enough or just falling for another manufactured underground aesthetic.
The track "Paparazzi" is the most obvious nod to this conflict between underground music and popular recognition. Camera clicks swarm a stumbling kick drum and vocals that say "Click click click / Camera flashes all around… It's hard to be famous / Follow rat trail everywhere." It could be catchy if you could hear more than a handful of the lyrics, but that would probably make it too sincere. Rat Section aren't like that. There's a casual sense of defiance in both their tone and the way they refashion pop tropes and song structures into their mishmash of industrial and concrete textures.
Soopi's vocals—"hot and nasty"—poke through booming drums, winding synths and shakers on "2004." It sounds like what might happen if Zaliva-D covered Nelly's "Hot In Herre." Ratty Sleigh Johnny comes close to something sweet on "Falling In Love," their cutesy voice singing "I'm feeling insane / Miles away / I'm falling in love" over gated trance pads. But no two songs are sung the same on What Stays In Vegas. With "Shake It To The Edge," Ratty Sleigh Jonny replaces those once alluring tones with shrill cries over a jagged and lo-fi dancehall beat that brings to mind Ossia and Vessel's 8-bit version of the Sleng Teng riddim for their label FuckPunk—a term that refers punk who doesn't give a fuck about any cause, punk or not. You could say the same for Rat Section.
Whether or not their collaboration started off in a karaoke bar, it's a fitting context for What Stays In Vegas. Karaoke bars are often dark, semi-anonymous places for people to express themselves in an unusually unhinged way, where pop music becomes something radically different and DIY. On What Stays In Vegas, you've got raw, grungy, un-Autotuned tracks which, if the vocals were clearer, could almost resemble pop music. At a time when music journalists are lamenting over how the underground supposedly doesn't exist anymore, it's refreshing to have a duo prove that there will always be underground music in some form, a place for weirdos to sing their hearts out and not care what anyone else thinks. Some call it anti-pop, but gonzo pop might be a better term.
Tracklist01. Chuggus
02. Paparazzi
03. Shake It To The Edge
04. Buggus
05. 2004
06. Falling In Love
07. Hardcore Theremin
08. Rat Lifestyle