Rival Consoles, electronics with a guitarist approach
“I have been doing electronic music for almost twenty years: it explores everything, from the heaviest and most physical sound to the softer and delicate one. I want my music to express emotion and color”. With these words Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles, presents himself, one of the most interesting names of the contemporary electronic scene: an artist able to speak even to those who normally do not attend the genre, with fascinating instrumental compositions and the result of a “classic” writing process “” I think much of what I do with my songs is influenced as the bands write songs “, he says. “I think of the blurd walls typical of the shoegaze and alternative rock, which are probably unconscious influences. I have always tried to reproduce the physicality of a band that sounds strong and together”.
You understand this well by listening to “Landscape from Memory”, his new album published by Erased Tapes, which comes after a difficult moment and marks a sort of creative rebirth for the artist. A record that is nanned at the center of the concert of 13 June last in Milan, and which will bring him again to Italy on September 7 at the Manifesto Fest in Rome and 11 October at the Robot Festival in Bologna. Rival Consoles shows non -simple DJ sets, but performances in which he uses synth, digital audio workstation and images created in real time: Live Electronics, as they say in these cases.
The landscape of memory
“I believe that from the first moment I created the progression of initial agreements, something struck me emotional level. It was for a long time that I had not proved anything like that. I want music to move me, and this melody made me imagine flying over landscapes and mirrors of water. I seemed to observe nature”, says West speaking of the song that gives the title to the album. That moment of connection rekindled the engine after a long block. “Some pieces such as” Landscape from Memory “and” Gaivotas “had a life force that asked me be careful. I did not try to create something powerful: they were the ones, those songs, to be it. And I believe that over time our relationship with things change: it is important to accept it and not to force yourself to experience emotions that are not there”.
The raw material of the disc is also made of discarded fragments, forgotten ideas, improvised recordings. “My way of working is very close to a flow of consciousness. I produce a lot of material, I often lose or forget what I did. And this creates a strange but beautiful relationship with ideas: when I rediscover them with new eyes, sometimes they finally buy a sense”. The disc oscillates between tension and release, energy and suspension, but West builds a balance not only with what it inserts, but also with what she chooses to leave out: “I am interested in the contrast, I never stay too much in the same style. But I also fascinate the idea of order, and for this there are structural or timbre anniversaries that give consistency to the whole”.
Instrumental music (and universal)
Even without vocal parts, the songs transmit precise emotions – in some ways even more universal way because the texts inevitably tend to give specific meanings, mentions the sounds are more open to the interpretation of those who listen to them based on its mood. “I think there is a lot of hope in the album, but also nostalgia and reflection.” Landscape from Memory “and” Gaivotas “seem to me full of light euphoria.” Tape loop “and” harmful “instead are more melancholy. I like that music suggests emotions in an abstract way. In my concerts I always look for this dynamics of tension and release”.
Many songs, such as “In a trance”, were born away from the study: hotels, improvised spaces, moments stolen from travel. “A study can be creative but also oppressive. The mind affects. When you are elsewhere, you think differently. Even the quality of listening changes, and this can open new possibilities. For me, creativity is not linked to a precise place: the study is just one of the many ways to explore an idea”.
Live Electronics
The live dimension is fundamental. “For me to play live means to respond to what happens around. The environment, the public, the moment. I like to improvise, push the sounds towards sweetness or towards the fury depending on how I feel. I want people to live many different sensations”. Even the visual side of the concerts is everything except that accessory: “images are an improvised performance to themselves. They explore color, shape and feeling in a hypnotic, abstract, but inspired by nature”.
From the beginning with “I” in 2009, passing through very appreciated jobs as a person or articulation, Rival Consoles has become one of the reference names for a human electronics, warm and far from the freezing perfection that often feels in the genre .. and the future? “I am inspired by so many things that it is difficult to say where I will go. But I know that I will continue to be creative. Indeed, in recent times I feel inspired more than ever – and this gives me a lot of hope”.
