That’s the Sound of the Police!

What if, at the dawn of 1985, Swedish guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen had joined up with Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore for a side project titled “Enjoy the Violence”? The result might sound a lot like Brooklyn’s Ratatat.

Just the third band in history to perform inside the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, Ratatat features the rare combination of guitar and synthesizer sans vocal accompaniment, and though it might seem like a boring arrangement, the result sounds like nothing else on the market. Mike Stroud is the Malmsteen of the two, while Evan Mast creates the blips and soft keyboard chords that keep the whole shred-bird flying along at 90 eagle-wing beats per minute. The duo is touring to support it third LP, epically titled LP3, but count on hits such as “Loud Pipes” and “Wildcat” to get thrown in, along with some of the pair's famous remixes for fellow weirdos Björk and the Knife.
Sat., April 11, 7 p.m., 2009