Rival Consoles – Queen City Sounds and Art

“Known Shape” finds Rival Consoles seeming to model a process video in a song. We hear individual rhythmic pieces working in conjunction with each other in a techno beat, accenting melodic tones, background harmonics and a slow-moving textural stream beside it. In the foreground there are bright filigrees of tone as well as hushed low end swells. It’s a bit like getting lost inside the hidden world of a computer at work and being somehow aware of all the components functioning in a way that makes all the things we take for granted with electronic devices happen. Being able to take in this granular detail abstracted to sound has a parallel to both musically and conceptually to Kraftwerk’s classic 1974 song “Autobahn” in being a musical expression of human technological achievement but focused on a smaller scale yet creatively on the same plane of conception. Listen to “Known Shape” on Spotify and follow Rival Consoles at the links below. The new record Landscape from Memory is out July 4, 2025 via Erased Tapes.

Rival Consoles on Instagram

Rival Consoles on Facebook

Rival Consoles on Twitter

Rival Consoles on Apple Music

Rival Consoles seem to channel a retro science fiction film aesthetic with “Running” from its new album Now Is (which released on October 14, 2022 via Erased Tapes). The steady, accented beat and the rapid, angular echoes of tone and bright melodic cast convey a sense of motion with distorted white noise streaking like wind. One imagines large empty spaces on a distant planet long lightly colonized with small urban areas connected by conveyances that leave one with the leisure time to take in and be impacted by the environment. Composer Ryan Lee West imbues the track with a textural component in the rhythm as more ethereal drones bubble up and drift off so that one does feel like one is inside a kind of machine that effects travel and captures the complexity of the device and its interaction with the surrounding environment in the arrangements for a holistic listening experience that grounds the music even as it captures what it might be like to spend unstructured time in a peaceful alien world. Now Is is now available digitally and on vinyl and CD. Listen to “Running” on YouTube and follow Rival Consoles at the links below.