Name: Recovery - Main Synth by Rival Consoles
Duration: 2 min 18 s
Description: Main synth made using the prophet8 for Recovery.

Love dancing to this in 5 rhythms so much can be expressed 💚

I would love to know how you did the different rhythmic patterns in this, beautiful !

Walking around Lynn Valley in Vancouver with this playing was one of the best moments in life I've ever had.

Buy Projections Double LP vinyl / Stream / Download: https://ffm.to/projections

Respected producer, DJ and sound designer Alex Banks presents his third studio album ‘Projections’, returning to Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint. The work follows up critically acclaimed releases on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown, Ninja Tune, where he remixed Bonobo, and his sublime sophomore album ‘Beneath the Surface’ from 2019.

Produced in his studio in Brighton, UK, the album is an immersive nine-track masterstroke covering the gamut of electronica, techno, breakbeat, bass and IDM, fit for clubs and home-listening alike. The project was born in the early stages of 2021. With little outside stimulation to draw inspiration from, Banks
invested in new gear including a Moog Matriarch, DFAM and a host of Eurorack Modules - and set about immersing himself in the possibilities of his new semi-modular synths. In terms of sonic reference points, he found himself in new territory, too. “Usually going to a club night, or concert, or even the
simple things in life that you take for granted all feed into a melting pot of things that inspire me to create. But without these, I instead found myself drawing on memories of experiences, and imagining new ones for the future to come. I began to feel like these were projections, almost like memories of experiences I had been projecting via the music I was creating,” he shares, adding that memories of clubbing trips to Berlin, London and Brighton fuelled his vision for the album.

Furthermore, the seclusion we collectively experienced allowed Banks to philosophise on the nature of human connection, which fed into the album concept: “I started to think about how during our period of relative isolation, we are all projecting into the digital ether, searching for a connection in an increasingly virtual world where shared human contact and experiences have
become scarce.”

Projections

Into The Realm

A track that didn't make the album 'Now is' but I like some moments in it, so wanted to share this demo. 

Enjoy!

untitled_2022_demo

Ryan Lee West reinforces his unique style of minimal electronic arrangements with a new 6-track EP – 'Sonne' out on Erased Tapes.

ORDER 'Sonne' on 12"/DL: http://www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP059
ORDER 'Odyssey / Sonne' on CD: http://www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP069
ORDER via iTunes:
http://snip.ftpromo.net/sonne
GET TICKETS:
http://www.erasedtapes.com/artists/events/5/Rival+Consoles

Continuing on from his Odyssey EP released in 2013, Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles creates atmosphere and space whilst exploring waves of sound and rhythm, and the power of colour. With Sonne Ryan creates music to structure itself around a pulse, rather than the pulse being the defining point. 

The title track begins with “a very subtle set of melodies that repeat almost without confidence, and then gradually give way to a huge collage of colour and power”, as Ryan describes it. Not relying on a conventional beat, it’s a prime example of how an analogue synthesiser can create the power and momentum of a rhythm section. From the distorted waves in 3 Chords, growing and shrinking, to the rhythmic waves of constant speeding up and then slowing down in Recovery, it’s the Moog Voyager, Prophet and tape delay that make up the core sound of the EP. Whilst tracks like Helios, Haunt and Think Tank see West play live drums and acoustic guitar.

“I’m often looking at art in exhibitions and I always think to myself ‘why the hell don’t I have this much colour in my work?’ The answer in part I think is down to synthesis. It is very difficult to create colour without it sounding plastic. Colour in music is both the note combinations and the actual timbre of the sounds. There are lots of instances of very colourful ambient sounds, which I took great care to create for each song, using various methods – from passing analogue synths through chains of effects to chopping up random sequences of recordings and forming tiny collages." – Ryan Lee West 

ABOUT THE ARTWORK:  

Resembling the colour and vibrancy in his music, the cover art was created by South London artist Supermundane, who was also responsible for the artwork of the Odyssey EP.

TRACK LISTING:  	

A1. Sonne  A2. 3 Chords  A3. Helios  B1. Haunt  B2. Think Tank  B3. Recovery 

PRESS FOR ODYSSEY EP:

'Glorious...unabashedly epic...’ – Dummy
'Atmospheric synths swell victoriously' – XLR8R
‘Rival Consoles, is the likes of Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds' glitchy, electronic cousin’  8/10 – The 405


ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Some might be surprised that London based electronic producer Ryan Lee West, the man behind Rival Consoles, shares a home with contemporary classical composers such as Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds and Peter Broderick. And yet they have a lot more in common than expected. Fascinated by sound from an early age, Ryan chose to dedicate his time to studying, experimenting with and producing sound graduating from De Montfort University in Leicester. One consistent element in his musical journey has been his desire to create a more organic, humanised sound. Ryan often drafts early ideas on piano, violin and guitar, although the end result is much more electronic-laden. As an accomplished sound designer he has repeatedly performed at the Tate, and recently created a bespoke audio-visual performance for Boiler Room at the V&A. Ryan is currently composing music for a soon to be announced BBC production.

LIVE:	
	
After supporting Luke Abbott on his recent UK tour and I Break Horses on their North American tour in spring, Ryan will debut his new live set with a special release show in London, followed by a string of West Coast U.S. dates culminating in Decibel Festival in late September – more details to be announced soon. 

OFFICIAL WEBSITES: www.facebook.com/rivalconsoles · www.erasedtapes.com

Sonne

Recovery

Buy 12"/DL

Rival Consoles - Recovery

I'm just getting started

Production by Hennedy

'Providence' Out Now - 
Ninjashop / Stream / Download: https://nathanfake.lnk.to/providenceSO

Taken from 'Providence' released 10h March 2017 via Ninja Tune.

Listen to Ninja Tune New Releases on Spotify: http://ninjatune.lnk.to/new/spotify

Follow Nathan Fake -
Facebook: http://found.ee/nfake-fb
Twitter: http://found.ee/nfake-tw
Spotify: http://found.ee/nfake-sp
Soundcloud: http://found.ee/nfake-sc

Artwork by Matt Bateman http://flat-e.com

DEGREELESSNESS feat. Prurient / Now We Know

Nathan Fake - 'DEGREELESSNESS feat. Prurient'

Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles has announced his fourth full length album 'Persona' will be released on 13th April via Erased Tapes.

The title 'Persona' was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s film of the same name, specifically a shot in the opening credits of a child reaching out to touch a woman’s face on a screen, which is shifting between one face and another. This powerful image struck Ryan and it inspired the album’s main theme — an exploration of the persona, the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us, the spaces in between; between states, people, light and dark, the inner persona and the outer persona. 

"My music is generally is generally inward looking. I like finding something about the self within music, that doesn't have to be specific but maybe asks something or reveals something. This record is a continuation on the self through electronic sounds. Like Legowelt once said ‘a synthesiser is like a translator for unknown emotions’, which I think sums up what I am trying to do. I think all these emotions we have make up our persona. So in a way by finding new ones you alter or expand your persona. And that is what I want my music to try to do. I deliberately aimed to be more sonically diverse with this record. I wanted to experiment more. I wanted to create new sounds and new emotions.”

Recorded at his studio in south-east London, ‘Persona’ benefits from Ryan’s exploration of a dynamic production process that combines analogue-heavy synthesisers, acoustic and electric instruments with a shoegaze-level obsession with effect pedals. A greater depth of emotion and confidence can be heard across the album. From the deconstructed movements on ‘Unfolding’ that starts the album with a snap of delayed snares, the apocalyptic drones of the title track and thundering drums in ‘Phantom Grip’ to more  restrained ambient feels of ‘Dreamer’s Wake’, ‘Rest’ and ‘Untravel’. The latter transverses six beatless minutes of undulating melodies representing “a limbo space, a feeling of ennui, of not really ever being known to others and others not ever really being known to you”.

'Be Kind' reveals a musical connection with fellow Erased Tapes artist Nils Frahm, with its minimal approach and improvisational nature. On the more complex sounding ‘I Think So’ Ryan aims to replicate a colour collage with sound. Like a musical kaleidoscope, a flashing and convoluted mass. Written after he saw Slowdive perform live last year, ‘Hidden’ builds from whispers to landscapes of controlled noise. In an interview with XLR8R magazine, Ryan explains: “once you start trying to make a sound loud, then you turn your back on thousands and thousands of sonic possibilities. One of the best things to do is to start a track with a really quiet, weak sound.” Taking this idea to its ultimate conclusion, ‘Fragment’ closes the album as an innocent sounding ambient piece, almost nursery rhyme like, yielding time for reflection on how the persona has changed.

'Persona' follows the success of a series of releases — the ‘Odyssey’ and ‘Sonne’ EPs, long player ‘Howl’, and 2016’s mini album ‘Night Melody’ — that saw Ryan mature into what Pitchfork has called a “forward-thinking electronic musician with his own ideas about sound”. Atypical of instrumental-electronic music, Ryan has achieved a signature sound that’s unmistakably identifiable as Rival Consoles. Going beyond typical electronic music production, Ryan defines it as “songwriting with an electronic palette of sounds”.

The increasingly dynamic live audio-visual show, born from bespoke performances at the Tate and for Boiler Room at the V&A Museum featuring self-programmed visuals in Max/MSP, has propelled him to play around the world. Ryan launches ‘Persona’ at London’s XOYO on 12th April with further dates to be announced.

Persona

Unfolding

Buy 2LP/CD/DL

Rival Consoles - Unfolding

My remix for the amazing Rob Clouth on Max Coopers Mesh Label.
Listen to the EP and the other great remixes here:
https://store.meshmeshmesh.net/products/rob-clouth-transition-remixes-ep

Transtion EP

Rob Clouth - Transition Ben Lukas Boysen Remix

Taken from the album 'Beneath The Surface' out now on Max Cooper's Mesh Label

Download/Stream/Purchase Vinyl here: http://mesh.lnk.to/BeneathTheSurface

Beneath The Surface

Nowhere Left

The next preview of my new album is out today. It is repetition, that seemingly boring thing which gives us all the magic of music, with its repeats inside repeats.

The track was written for a video chapter of the new AV show story "Yearning for the Infinite". The visualisation shows our cities as duplicated animated structures stretching off into the infinite distance (which I'll post very soon), and tells the story of our endless societal growth, with the music telling the same story by what means it can. Perhaps you'll find it a maddening listen, I hope not. For me there's always been something special about musical simplicity, like there's nowhere to hide, and if there's only two chords, they better be good ones. Also the track is for escaping the 5 second socials attention span thing, it needs a few minutes to work, ideally eyes closed headphones on, if you can spare me the time I promise it will be worth it!

Listen to Repitition here: https://ffm.to/pdn5ban

Artwork by Renick Bell

Repetition

Main synth made using the prophet8 for Recovery.

Recovery - Main Synth

Release date vinyl & digital: Jan.26/21

We're pleased to welcome back Brighton-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound designer, and producer Alex Banks for a special premiere of 'Awake' off the new Blue Gold album on Prague imprint, YUKU. This is a compilation of six striking pieces of music from three unique and distinct artists, each elaborately soundtracking the luxurious and endless nights of tomorrow...

Support the album: https://fanlink.to/bluegold
Artwork: Felix Rothschild - www.facebook.com/flxrothschild/
Check out Alex's GD podcast - https://soundcloud.com/getting-deeper/getting-deeper-podcast-130-mixed-by-alex-banks

Alex Banks
@alexbanksmusic
www.instagram.com/alexbanksmusic/
www.facebook.com/alexbanksmusic
http://alexbanksmusic.bandcamp.com/
www.alexbanksmusic.com/

YUKU 
@yukumusic
www.instagram.com/yukuprague/
www.facebook.com/YUKUMUSIC/
https://yukumusic.bandcamp.com/merch

Getting Deeper
@getting-deeper
www.gettingdeeper.de
www.instagram.com/gettingdeeper
www.facebook.com/gettingdeeper
★ NOW ON SPOTIFY ★ bit.ly/GettingDeeper

--------
Also a supremely technically gifted sound technician, Alex creates music for film and television and could never be accused of lacking excitement. Amplifying his skills on every level, he retains the essence of emotional communication that makes his work so engaging.

“People really feel like they’ve got an emotional connection to it,” he says. “I feel like every track that I write has to resonate with me on an emotional level. If I’m not connecting with it, and it’s not evoking some kind of feeling in me then why should I expect the listener to feel that too? As we’re all made of the same kind of stuff as it’s resonating with me then hopefully it’s going resonate with other people who are listening to it as well.”

Following his second studio album, Beneath the Surface, this past Nov.12th saw Alex pilot a cataclysm of new abrasive sounds with his EP ‘Tephra’, released on Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint. The ideas emerged from two months in the rugged, black volcanic surroundings of the Canary Islands, Spain. Banks armed himself with a restricted set of equipment taken from his studio in Brighton and set about focusing on the core of his musical expression. The change of scenery brought a different intensity to Banks' sound, one that impressively finds a line between home listening and club-focused dance-floor bombs....much like today's premiere.

Vinyl & digital - Jan.26/21

Recovery - Main Synth

Rival Consoles

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