Following on from the piano-led closing track of his recent studio album Now Is, Ryan Lee West aka Rival Consoles shares new piece Spirit Loop ahead of Piano Day 2023.

"This piece is built around a piano loop I made, where the result was completely accidental. I played the piano with my right hand whilst recording with my left, and captured the loop in only a few seconds. There was no intention to the type of loop, but somehow it ended up being something that I instantly connected to. With tape loops the timing doesn’t conform to a grid or normal counting, which I like because it means I can make music in a much more free form sense. When you stop counting time you hear and think differently.

The piece is roughly divided into two halves, the first is one playback speed and the second is when time is completely slowed down, which feels like a new world opens up. I have layered the piece with delicate ambient sounds which are in fact the main loop recycled and processed in different ways. I like to make a lot of material from a single source in music so that it has a deeper connection. I think of this piece and ‘Quiet Home’ as being exercises in free form minimalism. A lo-fi world of texture and ambience."

— Ryan Lee West, London, March 2023

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