Tag: Rival Consoles Overflow

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rival Consoles Shares Upbeat Yet Cinematic “Catherine”

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Over the course of his nearly two-decade career, West’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his earliest releases to gradually becoming more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while 2021’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media — and was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name. 

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album, 2022’s Now Is featured some of the most playful and melodic material of West’s catalog in some time, with the album’s material drawing from music, art, film, colors, shapes and even human emotions. 

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

West followed Now Is with 2023’s standalone single “Coda,” an incredibly nocturnal song built around an eerie chord progression that slowly twists, turns and morphs as it builds up tempo paired with skittering beats and a relentless motorik-like groove. The composition manages to evoke a somnambulant and woozy buzz of energy.  “’Coda’ started as a really late night experiment around a chord progression that seemed haunting but also had some strange beauty,” West says. “The whole piece is centered around this theme. I wanted to embrace the dark and quiet moments of the nighttime but also the energy of people who were maybe moving around London late at night with a nod to house music.”

West’s ninth Rival Consoles album Landscape from Memory is slated for a July 4, 2025 release through his longtime label home, Erased Tapes. The album’s material blossomed following a frustrating fallow year away from the production desk.

For West, having spent the past decade producing and writing in a habitual way, falling out of love with creativity was a a sort of slowing of the clock that has long made him tick, a sense of being swallowed whole by some elementary force. And yet, the time out of the studio and writing room, helped inform what may arguably be his most invigorating album to date.

Partly stitched together from a scrapbook of discarded audio snippets, Landscape from Memory reportedly demanded a degree of openness and vulnerability from West during its assembly. “There is a kind of strange beauty to it because it involves the past, present and future in a very strong way,” West says.

The album’s climatic productions are frequently characterized by their propulsive quality and driven by West’s own push to step outside his comfort zone, having found inspiration from new and unfamiliar sources. Because his self-built Hackney studio suddenly felt too controlled of an environment, West changed up his creative process, mapping out tracks away from is studio desk. And as a result West’s forthcoming ninth album is a sort of travelogue of creativity on the move, a collection of postcards from a everywhere that features material defined by restlessness.

Landscape from Memory’s lead single “Catherine,” dedicated to West’s partner is a haunted yet remarkably upbeat track featuring propulsive, skittering and shuffling beats paired with a glistening synth-driven melody that twists and turns throughout a cinematic and expansive song structure.

“I recently came across this sketch of a melodic idea that I created many years ago,” West explains. “The title is named after the person who made me realise in that moment, that this idea had something special about it that should be returned to.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Over the course of his 15 plus-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while 2021’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media — and was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name. 

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album, last year’s Now Is featured some of the most playful and melodic material of West’s catalog in some time, with the album’s material drawing from music, art, film, colors, shapes and even human emotions.

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

I wrote about three singles off the album:

  • The Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk-like album title track “Now Is,” which features a a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios that manage to evoke prismatic bursts of color exploding before the listener’s eyes. 
  • “World Turns,” which also features a relentless motorik pulse built from a propulsive bass lines, glistening synths and twitter and woofer rattling industrial thump paired with a gently morphing song structure that sees tempo and tone shifts throughout. The end result is soulful, thoughtful electronic music with a human soul and beating heart. 
  • “Running,” a deceptively simple composition built around a single melodic idea — a glistening synth line that subtly morphs and bends throughout. The synth melody is paired with skittering thump and a motorik pulse that propels the song towards its conclusion — a gentle fade out. “I am very into classical music and the kind of structures and ideas they often use, and love the works which take a single melodic idea and create multiple variations from it,” West explains. “That is what I tried to do with this piece, where every single thing is a variation on the opening ten second theme. I spent over one year exploring a huge amount of variations from light to very heavy. Over much time I ended up being more inspired by the subtler, gentler variations, which allow the idea to breathe, which is a theme on this record.”

West’s latest Rival Consoles single “Coda” is the first bit of new material since the release of Now Is. The incredibly nocturnal “Coda” is built around an eerie chord progression that slowly twists, turns and morphs as it builds up tempo paired with skittering beats and a relentless motorik-like groove. The composition manages to evoke a somnambulant and woozy buzz of energy.

“’Coda’ started as a really late night experiment around a chord progression that seemed haunting but also had some strange beauty,” West says. “The whole piece is centered around this theme. I wanted to embrace the dark and quiet moments of the nighttime but also the energy of people who were maybe moving around London late at night with a nod to house music.”

Along with the release of the single, West announced his first North American tour dates in over five years. The tour includes a September 27, 2023 stop at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Rival Consoles Live Dates
06.02 Trevi, IT —Dancity Festival
07.02 Largs, UK —Kelburn Garden Party 2023
08.03 Guimaraes, PT — L’Agosto 2023
08.08 Agrigento, IT — Ellenic Music Festival 2023
09.01 Várpalota, HG —INOTA Festival 2023
09.27 Brooklyn, NY — Music Hall of Williamsburg
09.29 Montréal, QC — Théâtre Fairmount
09.30 Toronto, ON — Velvet Underground
10.04 Chicago, IL — Sleeping Village
10.06 San Francisco, CA — The Independent
10.07 Los Angeles, CA — Lodge Room
10.10 Austin, TX — Parish
10.14 Mexico City, MX — TBD
10.21 Hannover, DE — Kulturzentrum Pavilion
10.27 Pully, SW — Théâtre de l’Octogone
11.02 Vienna, AU — Grelle Forelle
11.03 Prague, CZ — Erased Tapes 2023
11.04 Katowice, PL — Hipnoza
11.05 Warsaw, PL — Niebo
11.07 Helsinki, FI — Tavastia Klubi
11.09 Stockholm, SE — Debaser
11.10 Copenhagen, DK — Rust
11.12 Hamburg, DE — Nochtspeicher
11.13 Berlin, DE — GRETCHEN
11.14 Cologne, DE — Stadtgarten
11.17 Paris, FR — Le Trabendo
11.18 Brussels, BE — Bozar
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rival Consoles Shares Glistening “Running”

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Over the course of his 15-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while last year’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media — and was composed for horeographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name. 

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album Now Is, is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Erased Tapes. Reportedly featuring some of the most playful and melodic material of his catalog in some time, the album draws from music, as well as art, film, colors, shapes and human emotions. 

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

So far I’ve written about two singles off the forthcoming Now Is:

  • The Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk-like album title track “Now Is,” which features a a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios that manage to evoke prismatic bursts of color exploding before the listener’s eyes.

  • “World Turns,” which also features a relentless motorik pulse built from a propulsive bass lines, glistening synths and twitter and woofer rattling industrial thump paired with a gently morphing song structure that sees tempo and tone shifts throughout. The end result is soulful, thoughtful electronic music with a human soul and beating heart.

Now Is‘ latest single, “Running” is a deceptively simple composition centered around a single melodic idea built from a glistening synth line that subtly morphs and bends throughout. The synth melody is paired with skittering thump and a motorik pulse that propels the song towards its conclusion — a gentle fade out.

“I am very into classical music and the kind of structures and ideas they often use, and love the works which take a single melodic idea and create multiple variations from it,” West explains. “That is what I tried to do with this piece, where every single thing is a variation on the opening ten second theme. I spent over one year exploring a huge amount of variations from light to very heavy. Over much time I ended up being more inspired by the subtler, gentler variations, which allow the idea to breathe, which is a theme on this record.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rival Consoles Shares Glistening and Thumping “World Turns”

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Over the course of his 15-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while last year’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media that was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name. 

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album Now Is, is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Erased Tapes. Reportedly featuring some of the most playful and melodic material of his catalog in some time, the album draws on music, as well as art, film, colors, shapes and human emotions. 

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk-like album title track “Now Is,” track that was centered around a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios that evoked prismatic bursts of color exploding before the listener’s eyes.

“World Turns,” Now Is‘ third and latest single continues a remarkable run of material featuring a relentless motorik pulse — built from a propulsive bass line, glistening synths, and tweeter and woofer rattling, industrial thump — paired with a gently morphing song structure in which tempo and tone shift throughout its run time. It’s soulful, thoughtful electronic music with a human soul and beating heart.

“The essence of ‘World Turns’ is built around this pendulum-like bass, that constantly drives the piece forward,” West describes. “I like having parts in music which are repetitive but everything else is changing around it, almost like a kind of hidden structure, because the repetition becomes more subliminal.” 

“I think of this music as being like industry, the industry of stuff having to be made. The world carrying on doing things whether or not it is good or bad, relentlessly moving forward — sometimes chaotic, sometimes more ordered.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rival Consoles Shares Glistening and Propulsive “Now Is”

Ryan Lee West is a critically acclaimed, London-based electronic music producer, best known as Rival Consoles. Interestingly, over the course of his 15-year career, the London-based electronic music producer’s work has diversified from the challenging electronic output of his early EPs to gradually become more conceptual and metamorphic: 2020’s Articulation used drawings and sketches to imagine and developed each track while last year’s Overflow explored themes of the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by advancing technologies, including social media that was composed for choreographer Alex Whitley‘s contemporary dance production of the same name.

West’s consistent desire to create a more organic, humanized sound often sees the acclaimed British producer often developing early ideas on guitar or piano; forming pieces that capture and evoke a sense of songwriting behind the electronics. His eighth album Now Is, is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Erased Tapes. Reportedly featuring some of the most playful and melodic material of his catalog in some time, the album draws on music, as well as art, film, colors, shapes and human emotions.

“The title of the record Now Is interests me because it is the beginning of a statement, but it is incomplete. I like art that is open and suggestive of ideas even if they are inspired by very specific things,” West explains. “With my previous record Overflow being very dark, heavy and almost dystopian, I wanted to escape into a different world with this music and ended up creating a record which is a lot more colorful and euphoric.”

Now Is‘ second and latest single, album title track “Now Is” is centered around a relentless motorik pulse and glistening synth arpeggios. Sonically while bringing Autobahn-era and Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk to mind, “Now Is” manages to evoke prismatic bursts of color exploding before your eyes.