Treanor, Rian

Treanor, Rian

Pattern Damage

The Death Of Rave

The Death of Rave is buzzing to present Rian Treanor’s 2nd EP of pointillist footwork and hyperchaotic garage deviations nearly a year since his nerve-sparking debut.  Pattern Damage demonstrates an increased spatial awareness whilst revealing a skizzy taste for hi-tech noise torsion as much as lush, raving, modernist hooks in four crisply diffracted derangements.  The EP’s four cuts pursue angular mutations of 2.1-step and and early Warp techno into faster BPMs and colourfully chromatic, sidewinding structures, all driven with a breathlessly forward, quicksilver style that’s entirely Rian’s own and with few comparisons in the current field.  Operating exclusively at a signature 150bpm temporality, the Pattern Damage EP finds Rian both opening out and refining his sound, greeting you with the brutalist, grimy n0!se of Pattern_A1, which sounds closest to SND or Errorsmith’s most oblique twisters, before the dub chords and skittish rhythms of Pattern_A2 recall Autechre getting off at Niche Club (R.I.P.) and Damage_B1 comes off like a giddier, footworking answer to Hyph Mngo before Damage_B2 unfolds a super cute and tricksy origami syncopation.  By splicing the syncopated swing ’n parry of Sheffield’s speed garage sound at +8 with the whirlwind flux of Chicago footwork, Detroit jit and the dizzying dynamics of Max/MSP software, his sound dances in a double refraction of ideas and influence between US, Afro-Caribbean and UK dancefloors in various stages of integration and mutation; following a line along Black-rooted dance music and the sharpest edge of experimental electronics in a way that’s...

Treanor, Rian

A Rational Tangle

The Death Of Rave

Rian Treanor re-imagines the intersection of club culture, experimental art and computer music with ‘A Rational Tangle’, his debut quartet of glass-cut, 150bpm hyperprisms for The Death of Rave. Galvanising and accelerating garage and techno with cuttingly crisp tonal diction and pointillist percussive palette, ‘A Rational Tangle’ demonstrates Treanor’s adroit and finely-nurtured rhythmelodic instincts through a quicksilver syntax of kerned, polychromatic 2-step patterns and whipsmart, emotive jit music. Functionally titled A1 thru B2, the EP’s four tracks vacillate ping-pong ballistics and recursive melodic motifs constructed in Max/MSP, dancing from pendulous, aerobic minimalism to taut, synthetic tabla grooves with grid melting nous, whilst also taking in gamelan-esque hypeR&B through wormholes of smeared and curdled harmonics, plus one dead lush section of Detroit-via- Yorkshire styled hi-tech funk. The production is stainlessly dry and future-proof whilst his arrangements are considerately efficient, yet it’s all blessed with a pop or ‘floor-ready turn of phrase that reveals new kinks, fills and twysts with each return listen. Whichever angle you view it from ‘A Rational Tangle’ forms a rewarding introduction to the work of a very promising and distinct new voice in electronic music. Rian Treanor (b. 1988) is an artist and producer based in the North of the UK. His practice references the dynamic cut-ups of Fluxus and Dada as much as UK dance music to present an insightful and compelling musical world of interlocking and fractured components. He has formerly studied with Lupo at Berlin’s Dubplates & Mastering, besides years spent running the Enjoy...