Rival Consoles releases new album closing track "Sudden Awareness of Now"

"Sudden Awareness of Now" is the final track featured on Rival Consoles' Articulation LP, and arrives after previous singles "Vibrations on a String" and title-track "Articulation".

Rival Consoles, aka Ryan Lee West, says of his latest outing, "This is a song I created late at night, I wanted to make something full of momentum and mood. The bird song that appears at the beginning of the piece was actually a very late idea in the creating process. My studio is surrounded by a lot of trees and there is always bird song, which I love but normally don’t consider wanting to use in my music. However one day when I was working on the piece, I kept noticing that the birds, were singing perfectly in tune with the song, so much so that it sounded like one of the little melodies that appears at the end of the song. I quickly recorded it on my phone and it just felt right in the music. I think it grounds the song and also plays with the idea that at the beginning of the piece is bird song, and at the end of the piece is a kind of electronic bird song."

He adds, "The end is something I have been longing to make for a long time, which is the closest I have gotten to synths coming in and out of picture like choreography, the synths are having a conversation, and it’s very fluid. The mood of the piece to me, is a kind of bittersweet blend of hope and nostalgia."

Articulation will be the first Rival Consoles album since 2018's Persona.

A press release states that Lee West approached writing the new album in a very visual way, drawing "structures, shapes and patterns by hand to try and find new ways of thinking about music."

He says, "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."