RIVAL CONSOLES – SOFT GRADIENT BECKONS
2025-07-14Ryan Lee West had found himself in a kind of private hiatus following his 2022 album Now Is. For a work so focused on untangling the present, nothing seemed to move much afterwards. It was only after shifting gears and scenery that things started to click again, sparking a post-hibernatory efflorescence of creativity that would soon become his ninth Rival Consoles album Landscape from Memory. Its title seems synonymous with “rebuilding from scratch”, and its music effuse with detail conceptualises all things “re-”: reviewing, rekindling, rejoining, as he fleshes out sonic sketches collected over the years to come back with one of his strongest, most engaging records to date.