LUZoSCURA

Not Really

Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen finally release their unique Nordic electronic sounds in album size.

'Full of melancholy-frosted electronics and emotive swells of classical piano, the new single from Nordic duo Ólafur Arnalds﻿ and Janus Rasmussen is a delicate, icy slowburn' – NME

Pre-order the CD/2LP/DL: www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP062
Pre-order the DL via iTunes and receive the album version of 'Thrown' instantly: snip.ftpromo.net/kiasmos

After dropping several tracks and performing at select festivals throughout the years, Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen dedicated the year 2014 to explore the area in-between Ólafur’s more acoustic, piano-based solo work and Janus’s synth-heavy electro pop, with their collaborative electronic project Kiasmos.

By focusing solely on their self-titled debut album, Ólafur and Janus have been able to combine and further develop their unique sound aesthetics to complete an album driven by their mutual love for electronic music. Made in Ólafur’s newly build studio in Reykjavík, Iceland, a majority of the album was recorded using acoustic instruments next to a variety of synthesisers, drum machines and tape delays. It features a live drummer, string quartet and Ólafur performing on the grand piano, producing an ambient, textured sound, which makes it a perfect home listen and equally danceable record. If you listen closely, you can spot them record the thumb piano, finger snapping and even the sound of the metal grinder of a lighter slowly to replace the usual electronic hi-hat sounds, giving the album a far more intimate and unique atmosphere.

“We decided to start almost completely over with this record, so most of the material is written this year with the idea of making a record that can stand as one piece rather than a collection of songs. I am very excited to get a proper record out exploring a different territory than I am used to. I touch a lot on electronic genres in my own music but never have the opportunity to go full out electronic like we do here.” – Ólafur Arnalds

“The Kiasmos project has been around since 2009, but because of all our other projects we never really got the time to sit down and write all the tracks we always wanted to. So when we early this year finally found the time to sit down and make a full length album there was so much we wanted to try out. The result surprised us a bit, it's deeper and more emotional than we imagined it to be, but that's the beauty of being able to make an album.” – Janus Rasmussen

Kiasmos – s/t will be released on Double-Vinyl, CD and Download via Erased Tapes on October 27th, 2014.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Lit 2. Held 3. Looped 4. Swayed 5. Thrown 6. Dragged 7. Bent 8. Burnt

LIVE DATES:

29.11.2014 London (UK) – Village Underground
05.12.2014 Berlin (DE) – Watergate
06.12.2014 Istanbul (TR) – Salon
15.01.2015 Groningen (NL) – Eurosonic

OFFICIAL WEBSITES: facebook.com/kiasmos · erasedtapes.com

Kiasmos

Bent

Buy 2xLP/CD/DL

Kiasmos - Bent

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

A journey through fractured calm — where glitch and ambience collide. Fragments of Stillness drifts between deep bass, digital emotion, and ethereal textures. Featuring Obscyron and Bassvoid. The sound of Echoic Mind, redefined.

Support

Quiet Frequencies

An Experiment led to this cyberpunk sci-fi Ambient

My Mistake

A Wise Memory

Buy Emergence: http://maxcooper.lnk.to/Emergence

I started this track with a simple Prophet patch running through a Moog ring mod with loads of overdrive. It wasn't so much overdrive that it became aggressive, but enough so that it had a simple tonal quality overlaid with plenty of honest low-fi grittyness. Sometimes all it takes is getting that first timbral feature right for the rest of the track to flow from there, and this was a good example for me. 

I also knew I wanted the track to fit later on in the Emergence story, where it should be rhythmically straight enough to fit into a club show where needed, but also for the part of the show where we explore visually, the range of complex living forms and evolutionary change - it needed to capture some of that beauty of life's morphogenetic creativity.

I found the chord sequence fairly quickly, and built the drums and smooth dynamics within a few days, but I got stuck on how to complete the track. I tried hundreds of different ideas, and thought I might need to bin the project, but then luckily stumbled across some old synth jam recordings that had some moments that sounded ok. So I jumped on those and went to work on an editing job. 

It turned out that a lot of the problem I had been having was that I was trying to add too much, when for me, the chords were the hook, and what was needed was a sparse melodic addition to support the chords rather than any sort of traditional tuneful hook. In recent years I've been more and more drawn to just chord sequences as the main features of tracks musically, with the rest stripped away. When Ryan Rival Consoles was considering a remix he commented the album seemed to be all about the chords (or something to that extent), so I guess that idea is in there. Chords just seem to carry the most emotion for me for some reason (as opposed to melodies or lyrics for example).

So there it is, I hope you like the track!

Emergence

12"/Download/LP Stream

Organa [Mesh001]

Ballade

Ballade (Djrum Remix)

Full stream of Indian Wells' emotive new single on Friends Of Friends. 

More info: https://www.xlr8r.com/news/2017/05/indian-wells-announces-new-album-shares-single/

@indian-wells
@fofmusic

Where The World Ends

More info

Exclusive: Indian Wells - Cascades

First preview of upcoming Kiasmos LP! Out soon on Erased Tapes Records

Buy Kiasmos' 2009 single, 65, here: http://erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP013

Thrown

@max-cooper reworks 'Everyone Is Falling', taken from The Great Distraction
https://vesselsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-distraction