Rival Consoles is available for live sets, please contact agency@thecentrifuge.co.uk for more details.

Recent Mix:

Recent Tracks:

www.myspace.com/rivalconsoles / www.erasedtapes.com

RIVAL CONSOLES is London-based youthful purveyor of intelligent dance music Ryan Lee West. With his critically acclaimed debut album IO released on Erased Tapes Records in 2009, West crafted an electronic record to transcend the discerning and flirt a little with the club culture. The follow-up record Kid Velo is slated for release in summer 2011 and we are taking bookings for club shows and festivals in support of this highly-anticipated release.

Check out Rival Consoles’ recent releases:
http://boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=201319
http://bleep.com/index.php?page=release_details&releaseid=19365
http://beatport.com/s/rHy4t
http://normanrecords.com/records/95467

Recent Interviews:
The Milk Factory
Headphone Commute

Biography:
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 before relocating to London. 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.

The album got recommended by James Chapman of MAPS: “I just got into this guy. The album’s great (‘IO’) and this (‘Electorate’) is my favourite track. It turns from electronica into a real kinda disco groove. Superb.” ‘1985’ got introduced by Tom Robinson on BBC6 Music. West recently moved to London where he is working on his next full-length album scheduled for a mid 2010 release. In the meantime he will showcase his new material at London’s FABRIC and other club venues throughout Europe.

Press:

UK:

US:

Germany:

Selected Press Quotes:

‘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

‘A new sulphuric wave is about to wash over our dancing forms and reduce us to boogieing bones – and Ryan West, aka Rival Consoles – is riding it on an acid-proof surfboard… leading the crusade against tired welterweight club rhythms… one minute indebted to the techno godfathers, the next paying reverential tribute to the masters of electronica’ – DJ MAG Fantastic Four

‘If you miss the Aphex Twin who wrote songs that lit up warehouse raves at 3 a.m. but still tied your brain into knots, do yourself a favor and check out Rival Consoles. West is a nascent IDM hero on IO’ (9/10) – 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

‘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)

Rival Consoles – Helvetica (video trailer) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

Rival Consoles – The Decadent EP (video trailer) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.