Rival Consoles details new album 'Landscape from Memory' out July 4th via Erased Tapes & shares first single "Catherine"
UK/EU tour dates announced.
Rival Consoles, UK producer Ryan Lee West, unveils his ninth studio album, Landscape from Memory, out July 4 on Erased Tapes and shares the lead single from the record "Catherine". Alongside this, West is also set to play a run of exclusive pre-release live shows in the UK & Europe.
Speaking about new track "Catherine", West said
“I recently came across this sketch of a melodic idea that I created many years ago. 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.”
Rival Consoles has been concurrently in the foreground and background of electronic music since the late 00s; conjuring tense melancholia for Black Mirror soundtracks, playing in front of 10,000 dance fans at Drumsheds, selling out London’s Barbican Hall, and logging an expansive, wandering collection of synth-sculpted albums that explore a myriad different styles and aesthetics, but always with human emotion as their lodestar.
Landscape from Memory, the ninth studio LP from the UK producer and musician born Ryan Lee West, finally 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 meant a slowing of the clock that makes him tick, a sense of being swallowed whole by some elementary force.
However, the time out also made room for his most invigorating record yet.
Partly stitched together from a scrapbook of discarded audio snippets, Landscape from Memory demanded a degree of openness and vulnerability in its assembly.
“There is a kind of strange beauty to it because it involves the past, present and future in a very strong way,”
offers the Erased Tapes mainstay.
He set to work massaging melodic kernels into full tracks, like the skippy, haunted club shuffle of memory-jogging lead single ‘Catherine’, which is dedicated to his partner.
“It’s extremely open, just a naked melody on drums, so exposed as an idea… I think because she was so excited by it, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm excited too, actually, I just didn't realise,”
he reflects.
These climatic productions are characterised by their propulsive quality, and driven by West’s own push to step outside his comfort zone, having found inspiration flowing from new and unfamiliar sources.
After his self-built Hackney studio suddenly felt too controlled of an environment, West altered course, mapping out tracks away from his desk. To that end, Landscape from Memory is a travelogue of creativity on the move, a collection of postcards from everywhere, and an album defined by its restlessness.
Growing up, West would often mess around with the materials on his parents’ land in the small town of Syston outside of Leicester, hammering nails into wood and “sawing stuff,” which ignited a strong curiosity for making and materials from childhood.
He soon found his way into music, starting on the guitar before teaching himself digital production and going on to study music technology at Leicester’s De Montfort University. He later became the first signee to the nascent London label Erased Tapes in 2007, establishing the label's shorthand for exploratory post-minimalism. IO, his debut album as Rival Consoles, came out in 2009, while his output has since evolved across nearly two decades of activity, from the critically acclaimed 2018 offering Persona to Landscape from Memory’s 2022 predecessor, Now Is.
As a multidisciplinary artist he has always been passionate about imagery and how it relates to and inspires music. His 2020 record Articulation was informed by drawings he made in his sketchbook. He has also been experimenting in various motion media, from programming particle animations in Max MSP to filming and editing daily video clips, and manipulating imagery in Touchdesigner or Blender, which would shape the visual counterpart in his live A/V shows since 2015.
As Rival Consoles, West’s calling card is his ability to channel hope, pain, sadness, and euphoria in one fell swoop, twisting the key in the lock of his internal world and telling stories without words. Crucially, Landscape from Memory is as much about zooming in on the details as it is about seeing past the horizon. Like a saturated photograph or an abstract painting daubed with bright splotches, Landscape from Memory is a riot of colour, an album blazing with a sound-shaper’s renewed love for his craft.
Picture by Eva Vermandel
Live Dates
29.03. Brighton, UK — Corn Exchange (improv set with Clark and Sebastian Mullaert)
10.04. Madrid, ES — Copérnico
11.04. Barcelona, ES — MUTEK Connect
08.05. London, UK — HERE at Outernet
09.05. Glasgow, UK — SW3G
10.05. Leeds, UK — Belgrave Music Hall
11.05. Dublin, IE — The Button Factory
16.05. Amsterdam, NL — Melkweg
17.05. Antwerp, BE — TRIX
18.05. Paris, FR — Le Trianon
22.05. Vienna, AT — WUK Wien Aula
23.05. Zürich, CH — Plaza Zürich
25.05. Berlin, DE — Kesselhaus
13.06. Milan, IT — Triennale di Milano
Tickets available HERE
with more dates to be announced.
Pre-order album here