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Now you don’t expect the love child of Jean-Michel Jarre and Bernard Fevre (more of him coming here soon) to be born in 1985! Not literally a love child but Ryan Lee West was born in the 80s and grew up in Leicester. His I0 is so beautifully 70-80s synth driven as he goes thorough various themes of house, techno, disco, funk, computer game, hip-hop, electro, rave; it really fits in the name and ethos of his label Erased Tapes.

It’s a shame that the 11 tracks (all instrumentals) are so short but as a ‘Preoccupied Fashion Bastard’, I’m guessing he wanted to avoid the 20 minute extremes that might get him more of ‘prog’ tag but still, this is dance music; love ‘XPR VR’ as it’s so Kraftwerk-esque.

A truly astounding debut album that’s really retro ahead of its time, by the end you left just wondering, how did he do that?

His next gig in the UK is supporting 65daysofstatic (who I unfortunately missed at Hop Farm Festival) along with Codes In The Clouds at the Firebug in Leicester on 24th July 2009 and as an aside, fans of old synths might like to check out Ape School’s debut, Ape School.

And whilst at it, definitely worth visiting ddc.erasedtapes.com and type in ‘MY-FREE-ERATP010’ you’ll get their Erased Tapes Collection I - At The End Of All Music Happiness Will Be Erased compilation featuring 11 tracks (two of these being Rival Consoles remixes) for FREE!

“Music for families on acid” indeed; I’m going to have to dig out some Gary Numan.

Reviewed: Rival Consoles - I0 (Erased Tapes) Cat. No: eratp16 CD/Download Release date: 13th July 2009
Tracklisting:
1 Milo (2:43)
2 IO (4:14)
3 1985 (4:06)
4 Func (3:57)
5 Electorate (4:12)
6 Preoccupied Fashion Bastard (3:55)
7 PVAR (4:13)
8 XPR VR (4:16)
9 Digital Fuck (3:41)
10 Agenda (5:04)
11 ARP (5:42)

Links:
www.myspace.com/rivalconsoles
erasedtapes.com
www.myspace.com/erasedtapes
www.myspace.com/jeanmicheljarre
Moog (2004) imdb
www.bobmoog.com
www.moogfoundation.org