Cinematic Dance Music for the more discerning dance floors.

RIVAL CONSOLES is youthful purveyor of intelligent dance music Ryan Lee West. With his highly anticipated debut album, West, the first born and long-standing artist on Erased Tapes, has crafted an electronic record to transcend the discerning and flirt a little with the club culture of summer 2009. I–II–III–‘IO’ !

Born November 10th, ‘1985’, Ryan Lee West grew up in the small city of Leicester in the midlands of England. Fascinated by sound from an early age, Ryan chose to dedicate his time to studying, experimenting with and producing sound at De Montfort University Leicester.

West strives to humanise and at the same time emphasise entirely computerised sounds to defy categorisation in modern electronic music. Rival Consoles combines a clever and complex mix of hard-hitting beats with catchy acid melodies.

Or as he describes it in his own words: ‘Rival Consoles is a musical project where I take ideas which are cheap and processed, and combine them with rich, unpredictable patterns – resulting in music which appears commercial yet typically against commercial music at the same time.’

Earlier EP releases clearly define his progression from ‘The Decadent EP’ and the follow-up 7-inch ‘Helvetica’, where instead of X-Box vs. Playstation, classical theory meets dance. More recently West contributes three album tracks, ‘Milo’, ‘Func’ and ‘ARP’ to his 12-inch split EP with Ólafur Arnalds’ minimal-techno outfit Kiasmos.

There is more to this freshly graduated 23 year-old than meets the eye, for those not content with 4/4 beat dance floor stormers; West is fast establishing himself as both a sound designer and programmer. Having repeatedly performed at the Tate Britain Museum in London, where he drew over 2000 visitors into his unpredictable, yet detailed sound drawings ‘…using self-created sound manipulation tools in MAX/MSP and Super Collider’. New York based composer Nico Muhly, known for scoring the Oscar-nominated The Reader and his collaborations with artists from Björk to The National, is amongst one of the first to receive West’s trademark remixes.

After having supported his city neighbours and label comrades KYTE on a first extensive European tour last winter, Rival Consoles will embark on a first headline club tour throughout the UK and Europe later this year.

'West’s Rival Consoles project revives the schism between the commercial house music of suburban hell-holes and the perverted beats of electronica’s golden boys. A massive slice of jagged grandiosity... 'IO' is a party record even snobs can enjoy.' (7/10) – NME (UK)

'Like prehistoric Nintendo with its dubbed-out bump and 8-bit trills' (7.5/10) - XLR8R (US)

'Writhes in a field of its own, twitching and buzzing like little else... One of the best releases of its kind this year.' – CLASH (UK)

‘Thrilling stuff, primed for the more discerning floors...' – BLEEP (UK)

'One of the most exciting new British talents. IO is the confident debut album of a man dotted of a clear vision and a sharp mind' (4.6/5)
– THE MILK FACTORY (UK)

'Rival Consoles finally comes in full album length and satisfies all along the line. His tracks appear to be little short of celestial, are catchy and contain several grandiose melodies' (5/6) – RAVELINE (DE)

‘Ibiza yesterday, Berlin today, Miami tomorrow. You don't need to get on a plane to explore the international club-scape: putting on IO by Rival Consoles will do' (4/5) – MUSIKEXPRESS (DE)


Incl. ‘1985’ as introduced by Tom Robinson on BBC6 Music, London.