It’s hard to believe that this fall will see the 15th anniversary of Ratatat’s breakthrough album Classics—though the indietronica duo has seen their fair share of success in the wake of that now-iconic release. Although they haven’t released an album since 2015’s Magnifique, their music has slowly continued to seep into the mainstream, while Mike Stroud has since carried that project’s blown-out, buzzing guitar tones and hip-hop beats over to his new outfit KUNZITE, which released their debut album back in 2018.
This new duo—in tandem with Agustin White, who also released a project called Abuela with Stroud’s bandmate E*Vax in 2014—has released a handful of singles since then, and is now teasing a follow-up record called VISUALS some time this summer via Lowly and Wilder Records. The latest from that project arrives today with the hazy West Coast electropop of “FROSTY,” which invites you to bust out your board and hit the pavement or surf.
“‘FROSTY’ always felt like it flowed with surfing and skating,” White shares of the track while introducing the shred-happy visual—featuring the all-female skate crew GRLSWIRL—it arrives with. “It’s all about grabbing your board or wheels and just having fun. All of the athletes featured in the video were super supportive and encouraging of one another. You see their different skills on display throughout the video, including roller skaters who have made such a big comeback over the last few years yet—for Black culture, it’s always been there. The roots of roller skating lie within the Black community and we wanted to honor that.”
Watch that clip below, and expect more from KUNZITE in the near future.
