Rival Consoles, the project of Ryan Lee West, will release a new album on Erased Tapes.

Overflow, West’s first album since 2020’s Articulation, explores the human and emotional consequences of life surrounded by data, and it echoes the concept of social media, advertising, and marketing companies exploiting our data to gain wealth and political advantage. It was originally composed as a soundscape for choreographer Alexander Whitley‘s dance production “Overflow.”

“In the big data world of social media and cookies everything is invisible, silent, and hidden behind a pleasant, enticing aesthetic. I thought it would be interesting to do the opposite and have a very scratchy, mechanical, noisey scanning sound that sheds light on what is actually happening,” West says. “If every time our data was taken and sold or used, we heard a weird clicking sound, that would completely change how we perceive it.”

Alongside the announcement, West has shared lead single “Monster,” which pulls no punches on the album’s overarching theme. West says the track has a “kind of drunken madness to it.” It’s “highly repetitive” to “mirror the repetitive nature of how we as humans engage with technology such as social media.”

The London label describes the release as “a fitting theme for the moment, as Facebook confronts whistleblowers.”

For more information on Rival Consoles, check out his XLR8R studio feature here.

Tracklisting

01. Monster
02. I Like
03. Hands
04. Pulses of Information
05. Noise Call and Response I
06. Overflow
07. The Cloud Oracle
08. Tension in the Cloud
09. Noise Call and Response II
10. Scanning
11. Flow State
12. Touches Everything
13. Making Sense of It All

Overflow LP is scheduled for December 3 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Monster” and “Pulses of Information” below.