Rival Consoles and Lone transformed electronics into a dense organism in Prague
The ninth year of the Spectaculare festival has moved to a vibrant evening directed by the duo Rival Consoles and Lone. Both main actors have shown that contemporary music can be approached in many different ways. Fans of this genre thus received an extra portion of music and a successful visual.
Live: Rival Consoles, Lone
place: Acropolis Palace, Prague
date: April 14, 2022
© Libor Galia
Within each year, the Spectaculare Festival strives to achieve the widest possible genre range, but electronics is always a bit dominated, to which the mentor Josef Sedloň is surprisingly closest to the whole event. However, it would not be him if those overlaps were not more pronounced from year to year. In addition to established names, they often bring new discoveries to Prague, as well as artists who will have their premiere here. The next run of this year bet on a well-known face – Rival Consoles and Lone, who stand on the side of the electronic faction and fulfill its form a considerable dose of originality and a special creative approach. It took Matt Cutler to start the evening. Coby Lone is an established brand on the scene. Last year, she released a successful collection “Always Inside Your Head”, based mainly on its versatility. Right at the beginning, he was derailed a little by a small sound with a sound of only silence pouring from the speakers. Matt started at his usual pace at slower paces.
© Libor Galia
His set did not lack engineering precision, which was sometimes counterproductive, as you could predict in advance when there would be a change or a transition to the next track. However, it was skilled to work with beats, breaks and rhythmic loops, in which this fighter enjoys great. His watch boldly roamed the lands of a vibrating triphop, an electronic message from the Warp label, intelligent drum & bass or an ambient house, so he managed to build a deep sound texture. When he slipped into the waters of breakbeat for a few moments, the audience came to life. Cutler was also surprised by how much he copied from others. At one point, the name William Orbit crept into his mind, but this approach can also be understood as a kind of tribute. Lone demonstrated everything he could, including a dancing final. VJ Boris Vitázek took care of the visual, betting on the projection of some unidentifiable bodies, which changed their shapes and colors in space and time, at the same time an element often appeared. rolling water waveswhich symbolically illustrated the movement of the entire universe.
Ryan Lee West and Roberth Raths have been a well-coordinated team in recent years – gone are the old mistakes that accompanied, for example, the first Rival Consoles performance here. There has also been some progress over the last four years ago. Ryan approaches his work in a very sophisticated way, in a fashion of constant discovery of new modular elements and their interconnections. Its sound design thus moves to new levels, in which the original pillars acquire more functional and sophisticated arrangements.
© Libor Galia
Earlier tracks, which were run during the evening, also underwent the same reform. There were also fragments from the “Persona”, “Articulation” collections or the unforgettable excellent “Howl” records. Paradoxically, there was not much space left for the new “Overflow”, although it was she who made this move. Perhaps its hustle and bustle does not offer so many opportunities to apply in the current live concept of Rival Consoles. The set was thus dominated by those pulsating compositions, which fortunately West has a fairly significant arsenal in reserve.
© Libor Galia
Another inaudible element was the consistent line of abstraction, minimalist hustle and bustle, and precise melodic planes, which are at the pace of places deliberately breaking down the familiar rules of his creative approach. Everything suddenly had a logical justification, the energy of the whole set gradually graduated. If someone expected a darker experiment (perhaps closer to the “Persona” link), they did not. But nobody bothered that at all. Proof of this is the fact that the audience did not want to release this talented musician from the scene after the great “Hidden”. Roberth’s projections were again a stabbing abstraction, it was interesting to see how he perceived every musical moment played and completed the shapes, color shades or layers.
The eclectic evening directed by the Lone and Rival Consoles projects is over. Both actors showed how sophisticated contemporary electronic music can be without giving up its inspirations and roots. The advantage was the variety of both sets – a certain accuracy and straightforwardness in the first case, a more sophisticated sound in the second. So everyone could choose their own. Thanks for both.