Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles releases his highly anticipated new album Articulation.

Articulation, which follows 2018’s Persona, was conceived with a very visual way of thinking, unusual for the London musician and producer. During the writing process Ryan drew structures, shapes and patterns by hand to try and find new ways of thinking about music, giving himself a way to problem- solve away from the computer. The album title references a piece by the avant-garde contemporary composer Györgi Ligeti, though not for its music, but for the non-traditional graphic score that accompanied it.

“I find electronic music is often battling to say something with integrity because technology and production can easily get in the way. I think the goal of a lot of electronic composers is to find a balance between the vision of the idea and the power of possibilities on the computer. With a pen and paper sketch you can compose and rethink ideas without technology getting in the way, so for me it acts as a very helpful tool to refresh the process.” — Ryan Lee West

The idea of using analogue drawings and tools to bolster digital creations can be heard in the structure of the pieces that make up Articulation from the broody techno opener Vibrations on a String all the way to the album’s boundless closer Sudden Awareness of Now. While the anthemic rise and fall of Still Here and the beatless ambient meditation Melodica evoke a certain nostalgia, Forwardism achieves the very opposite by burying its melody within the fast-paced rhythm of its pulsating synths.

Rising out of birdsong heard from his studio window, Sudden Awareness of Now has a particular urgency about it and seems to perfectly capture a longing for escape. Built around a simple and repetitive melodic theme, expanding and retracting over the course of its seven-minute odyssey, West explains; “I like the fact that if you say something over and over again in music, then over time it can become something else, something reflective.”

· stream & order Articulation
· view Ryan's drawings for Articulation
· read Ryan's interview with Earlyworm

"An exploration of technology...driving his music to fresh spaces" — Clash

“Like the best club music, Articulation produces an expansion of generosity, a oneness not only with the next dancer, but all of creation” — A Closer Listen

"Never anything less than brimful of feeling" — Metro