British artist Rian Treanor's music is complex yet highly kinetic, reflecting equal interest in club culture and experimental sound design. His father is glitch/IDM pioneer Mark Fell (SND), and while Treanor's knotty, stripped-down beats bear sonic similarities to Fell's fractured rhythmic and timbral experiments, his work is significantly more danceable, informed by styles such as U.K. garage and footwork. Treanor generally improvises during live performances, but his debut full-length, 2019's Ataxia, was more thoroughly composed, yet still maintains a sense of spontaneity and playfulness. 2020's File Under UK Metaplasm pushed this sound further, with higher tempos and more elastic textures. He later released collaborations with Fell (2021's Last Exit to Chickenley) and Acholi fiddler Ocen James (2023's Saccades).

Treanor grew up in Rotherham, located near Sheffield, home to Cabaret Voltaire and Warp Records. Interested in skating and graffiti, he also started to DJ and produce music as a teenager, but didn't feel like any of his material was worth releasing until he was well into his twenties. Until then, he curated events for the Enjoy art space in Leeds, studied vinyl mastering with Lupo at Berlin's Dubplates & Mastering, and presented his design work and installations at numerous exhibitions. Identifying as a visual artist and not a computer programmer, he gravitated toward the improvisation-friendly visual programming language Max/MSP for his recordings and performances. His first EP, A Rational Tangle, was released by Boomkat's The Death of Rave imprint in 2015, followed by Pattern Damage less than a year later. His 2018 EP Contraposition was the first release from the relaunched Arcola, Warp's long-dormant experimental techno sublabel. Later in the year, the Death of Rave released Treanor's RAVEDIT, which included his infamous deconstruction of Whigfield's '90s Euro-dance hit "Saturday Night." Treanor's debut album, a playful yet challenging set of angular dance tracks titled Ataxia, was released by Planet Mu in 2019. File Under UK Metaplasm, taking inspiration from Tanzania's singeli scene as well as dancehall, grime, and footwork, appeared in 2020. The EP Obstacle Scattering followed in 2021, and Treanor collaborated with his father on the Boomkat-issued Last Exit to Chickenley. Saccades, recorded at a residency in Kampala, Uganda, with Acholi fiddler Ocen James, was released by Nyege Nyege Tapes in 2023. The album included a remix by glitch pioneers Farmers Manual. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi

Rian Treanor

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