Night Melody
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Night Melody | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 5 August 2016 | |||
| Genre | Electronic[1] | |||
| Length | 33:43 | |||
| Label | Erased Tapes | |||
| Rival Consoles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 6.9/10[2] |
| Metacritic | 75/100[3] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [1] |
| Drowned in Sound | 7/10[4] |
| Exclaim! | 7/10[5] |
| Mixmag | 7/10[6] |
| Pitchfork | 8.0/10[7] |
Night Melody is the fourth studio album by British electronic musician Ryan Lee West, performing under his stage name Rival Consoles. It was released on 5 August 2016, Erased Tapes Records.[8]
Writing for Night Melody began in late-2015, at the same time West's third album Howl was released. West had just come out of a 13-year relationship, inspiring the release of his fourth studio album.[8] In response to the release, West said: "I’ve been working on the mini album for four or five months straight. And I don’t mean that in the glamorous way. It’s been destroying my brain; there’s been a lot of problem solving. The ideas themselves always come quickly, it’s more the second stage of making things better and solving problems."[9]
Critical reception
Night Melody was met with "generally favorable" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 75, based on 6 reviews.[3] Aggregator Album of the Year gave the release a 72 out of 100 based on a critical consensus of 7 reviews.[10]
Writing for AllMusic, Paul Simpson said "The short album is relatively straightforward, with six tracks of subdued, atmospheric techno -- no filler, no beating around the bush. The album isn't quite as dark or sad as one might expect, given the context. It seems like a logical extension of the path he's been taking with his previous few recordings."[1] Stephen Proski of Drowned in Sound wrote "Night Melody was developed as a result of the incarcerated experience of working in abject environments with digital technology: the haunting yet comforting background noise of a hard drive humming. West, when left alone to his devices, is able to transform emotion into the esoteric, colluding synthesis into vibrant, organic swaths of sound."[4] The staff at Mixmag praised West for a richer and more complex sound than his previous releases.[6]