New Single from Rioux features Björk, Painting by Peter Richards

Brooklyn NY-based musician and producer Rioux is set to release Re: You in April, a 5-song E.P. he has described as "a mix tape of sorts."  On February 17, prefixmag.com unveiled the first song from Re: You, "Unison (feat. Björk)."  Featuring subtle pitch shifts of Björk's vocals and a geometrically bewitching beat, the song also featured cover art by ITAV founder Peter Richards (me!), a painting titled Walls Impede My Progress.

The track is available as a free download from the artist's SoundCloud, so enjoy!

NYUlocal.com, writing about a February 26 live performance at Glasslands Gallery, observed:

Erin Rioux (NYU ’12) talks about sound as if it were a physical substance that is at once biological and mathematical. Notes are sound waves to be “sculpted,” sounds are “raw” or “organic” or “digital” or “tactile.” His music, perhaps related to his attachment of these words to his sound, tends to take on an elastic, ethereal but beat-driven quality.

Rioux recorded the garage-influenced beat (for "Unison") with a live drum kit, which is one of the ways he builds his sound “from scratch,” favoring live instruments over stock samples. 

“I don’t make electronic music to use sounds that are only digital,” he explains with a hint of quiet connoisseurship.

Plug Gods referred to Rioux's music as "manifesting a sense of grace and cultivated beauty in its minimalism," something we couldn't agree with more, as evidenced by his 2011 audio/visual album Everything You Need Is Right Here, which is startlingly diverse songs and electronic workouts accompanied by film collaborations with video artist Cabrido.  The album manages to meld post-punk with indie folktronica in a very ear-friendly way that nonetheless takes you on a gently psychedelic adventure through sunlight, percussion, and electronic transcendence augmented with lots of live instruments and percussion, including tastefully "out" sarod workouts.  The album is also available on vinyl, in a limited pressing of 300 copies.

You can load and watch the entire album as a video playlist by clickity-clicking this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYdtoKVTjPI&p=9CB495959032649A

Erin Rioux has been a supporter of my art for a long time now.  His former band, Rochester MI-based The Novel Citizen, commissioned posters from me that still remain favorites in my portfolio.  He said he couldn't talk about some of the people he was collaborating with on Re: You when we were discussing the licensing of Walls Impede My Progress, and I thought "cool, he must be working with someone he admires."  Little did I know!  This is an exciting time for Rioux, a great track re-imagined from Björk's luminous Vespertine album, an honor by proxy for me (and excellent exposure for my painting), plus a free download for you!