Rival Consoles — Articulation

Articulation isn’t the greatest album of minimal electronic music ever made. That would be Immunity by Jon Hopkins. It also isn’t the first to deal in the formula of thump thump thump thump kick and bass, unobtrusive snares and claps, and rollercoaster synths that create a specific closed-room atmosphere perfectly suited for midnight parties for one.

In fact, so much of the minimal techno / minimal house / minimal electronic subgenre of electronic music does a great job of creating exactly that sort of vibe. Armchair, headbob, toetap, lemony beverage, one person daydreaming. Refer to my comments on Immunity; this feature of its music manages to convert even an early morning run on just another manic monday into a contemplative, meditative, in-the-here-and-now sort of experience. It’s one of the biggest features of this kind of music, and while Articulation doesn’t do this perfectly, it comes close enough.

At this point, it’s important to note that ‘minimal’ would perhaps be an approximate but unfair adjective to attach to Rival Consoles in general, and to this album in particular. The synths bob and weave with so much intricacy that while a track may seem devoid of maximalistic pomp, there’d still be plenty of layers to unpackage over each listen. This is particularly true of the title track, and the album opener, Vibrations On A String. Both of these tracks are deceptively complicated, containing multitudes both in terms both of sonic and compositional choices.

These compositional choices -- Rival Consoles’ arrangements are particularly fresh – are a consequence of an idiosyncratic method of composition he used for this album, involving pen and paper and graphical representations of different sections of each track. Critics have alleged that these methods have robbed the music of its emotion, but I absolutely haven’t found that. The album is heady, not brainy. There’s plenty of emotional quality to the music; no concern there whatsoever.

All in all, it’s not a perfect album, but a good one. And that, to me, is a good thing.