The London-based electronic musician Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles, returns with his 6-track mini-LP Night Melody, due out August 5th on Erased Tapes. As the name might suggest, the album is the result of long nights–many spent alone working on music after the break-up of a 13-year relationship with his partner at the time. He explains:
“I found myself, in a silent home, with the days getting dark very early. I’ve never before in my life been affected by the lack of light so much. I just remember it always being night time. I would either make music into the night, go out drinking with friends, or go to parties and dance into the early hours, every day, week after week, month after month, until eventually the days became brighter again.”
Crepuscular, and of an intimate mood, “Lone” is our first listen in on Night Melody. Seems the track had been kicking around since 2014, around the time he was working on his Sonne EP. Struggling to find the right balance between the song’s desire for forward motion and a prevailing condition of inertia, “Lone” combines brittle key strikes with the pulsing warm tones of night. Slides in time signature and other rhythmic subtleties eventually congeal across the track’s 5-plus minutes into a rousing forward motion, before melting back into the darkness of the early hours.
