Woke up this morning to the pleasant arrival of a new RATKING album, delivered as a free download via BitTorrent. Wiki93 and So It Goes (the group’s first EP and LP) were both excellent – a breath of fresh air amongst other slightly too nostalgic golden-age and slightly too syrupy offerings from their contemporaries in NYC. RATKING have forged a sound that is entirely their own, drawing from classic East Coast hip hop but also experimenting with grime, jungle, noise, punk and new wave elements, and verbal delivery that is often more aligned with spoken word poetry than rap (particularly in Hak’s case). Featured guests on new effort 700 Fill include World’s Fair’s Remy Banks, Despot, Princess Nokia, “Littlest Hustler” Alex Goldberg, Slickyboy and Sporting Life’s brother Teddy. Get it here – the 700 Fill bundle includes the album, a video and all the instrumentals.
