Rival Consoles – Howl

Titles can be deceptive; there’s little to imply angst or anguish in Ryan Lee West’s cerebral, ambidextrous electronica. Instead, the third full-length recording under his Rival Consoles moniker is a controlled slab of dark and light, the sounds organic in nature, its beats subversive, frequently sly.

West clearly understands that beauty dwells not in grand statements or gawping at the audience but via detail; from the pedal-routed synth cadences of the title track through to portentous slabs of cello underpinning Walls or spectral melodies of Ghosting, the subtle notions embedded across Howl arrive in seashell patterns – the word “fractal” comes to mind, waves within the nine tracks unfurling across the album as a whole.

So it is that 3 Laments channels its melancholia through a mesh of abstract consideration, Looming’s dark chords all misty and introspective. Howl doesn’t do immediacy, but neither does it need to; this is music to ponder to, to consider meticulously (and is no poorer for it). [Duncan Harman]