Auckland-artist ratbag invites you to the long gestating recesses of her imagination, into a world filled with frighteningly intriguing characters soundtracked by irreverently frenetic alt-pop. Sophie Brown — the project’s multimedia creator — just released her first EP why aren’t you laughing? which served as an introduction to the monstrously imagined outcasts who comprise her band. Together they meld all the raw elements of grunge and shoegaze into hypnotic pop confessionals.
For Brown, the visuals of ratbag emerged long before the music. It wasn’t until she was 15 years old that she actually tried her hand at the latter alone in her bedroom, prior to that she’d spent much of her adolescence filling notebooks with doodles. Eventually she decided that combining the two mediums was the best way to fully realize both: “This world kinda sucks,” is how she puts it on her various online bios. “So I made my own.”
When it comes to ratbag necessity is without a doubt the mother of invention — and with an entire world at her disposal — she proceeded to recruit a band from within it. There’s deemo (bassist) a red devil wearing baggy denim jeans and a matching bucket hat bespeckled with stars, fritz (keyboardist) a looming crocodile in a clown costume, slug (guitarist) a bird-like creature who wears a mask embroidered with the same design as deemo’s clothes, and eugene (drummer) who looks has the body of one of the beasts from “Where the Wild Things Are” but with a gargantuan octopus as a head.
The creatures call to mind the virtual manifestations of Gorillaz even as Brown attempts to surpass the digital barriers that go unbreached by its band members. To this end illustrations and even animations — from claymation to spooky live action clips shared on her Tik Tok — play a role in dissolving the barriers between the world of ratbag and reality. An unsettling proposition given her band’s preference for human flesh as tasty meal. Though a fever dream fantasy of hers is to construct a ratbag village where fans can interact and physically inhabit the place her band calls home.
Yet the music they create is undeniably enthralling. Like a scene out of the horror films that ratbag draws inspiration, too terrifying and mesmerizing to pull yourself away from, her music unfolds with a seductively punchy but harrowing energy. “dead end kids,” the EP’s opening track, finds ratbag hurtling through life’s grimey glamor. “I’m a dead end kid / On a dead end street,” she howls against the corkscrew jangle of guitars and splintering sonics. “Wanna smoke a cig / With my favorite freaks?”
On “exit girl” she swaps out gritty acoustics for ecstatic pop buoyancy, its concussively ebullient beats punctuating a boiling anxiety and frantic inclination toward escape. Then there’s “rot in love,” a swooning, breezy indie-rock romancer that showcases the many alluring idiosyncrasies of ratbag’s sound. While closing song “rats in the walls” — a homage to the literal family of rats who live in her bedroom walls — thunders toward a clamorous finale that somehow manages to pierce the lofty heights of emotion touched by moody anthems like “Where Is My Mind?”
Words: Steven Ward
Visit ratbag on her website, Tik Tok, and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
Listen to why aren’t you laughing? the new EP from ratbag below!
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