Bleep

On Articulation, Rival Consoles continues to conjure up the sort of symphonic techno opuses and widescreen pieces of electronic sound art that one heard on his previous record Persona. This is a rich, dense record, one where synthesisers lead the way but always remain in service of Rival Consoles’ ambitious artistic vision.

The more beat-driven tracks here have a chunky weight to their production that invokes labels like Innervisions and Kompakt, but cuts such as ‘Vibrations On A String’ and ‘Articulation’ have the same detail one finds in some Caribou productions. As a result, these sprawling tunes will do the job just as well in the headphones as through a club soundsystem.

There is a bit of a cyberpunk flavour to the crackling modular tones of these drum-helmed numbers, and this is given further prominence in the parts of Articulation where Rival Consoles strips the beats out. The dreamy fug of ‘Still Here’, for instance, draws from Vangelis while also containing a ghost of Lorenzo Senni’s post-trance innovations. Meanwhile the way that synths are etherised to delightful effect on the impressionistic ‘Melodica’ has one thinking of Oneohtrix Point Never and some of Tim Hecker’s early records.

Rival Consoles’ impresses once again with Articulation, the composer/sound artist’s latest electronic opus for Erased Tapes.