News

M. Sage shares the first transmission from his new album, Tender / Wading. Returning to write and record in a patch of homeland in the foothills and pastures of Colorado, Matt channels the reassurance of coming home into a sweeping, serene vision.

The follow up to his 2023 RVNG debut Paradise Crick, Tender / Wading marks a decisive, distinct evolution of his solo output. Matt’s involvement with groups like Fuubutsushi / his return to life nature alongside his family after ten years in Chicago coalesce as new creative stimuli, shifting his sound to a pastoral kind of folk kosmiche and contemplative electro-acoustic barn jazz for the front range, brimming with pale puddle blues and rusted oil drum reds.

Embracing the elemental and intentional, while finding a new comfort in writing on the piano, there is a sense of structural heft within these songs. Where Crick’s universe was born from magical realism and digital fantasy, Tender / Wading cuts from the human experience more directly, marking Matt’s most autobiographical work yet. Yet, he is quick, push back on notions of it being a highly conceptual record; “I’m just making the music that I would want to be playing in my headphones while weeding or whatever.”

Today we share “Tender of Land,” the closing track of Tender / Wading, and a prime slice of the holistic, radical softness that colors the record. The accompanying video, directed and edited by Matt, likewise offers a glimpse into the sensorial topography that inspired it.

Tender / Wading is available now for pre-order on digital, standard black LP, Japanese import CD with obi and exclusive bonus tracks (via Plancha), as well as in a limited artist edition run of 100 black LPs with alternate designs and screen printed covers, direct from the RVNG webstore.

Basking in the luminous lunar beams as Kate NV’s Room for the Moon Live enters our orbit today ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⏾.

Recalling an intimate evening a ways after the Kate’s 2020 sophomore album drop, this release marks five years since these songs first tracked on our collective radar, but moreover, it serves as a snapshot of Kate and her ace eight-piece band in full phase. Here, they deliver energetic and imaginative new takes on these beloved tracks, warping and stretching them towards new auditory avenues.

Thanks to some copious documentation from the lucky few who were able to attend this concert, the full show arrives here in audio / intermittent visual form, ready to be taken home and relived over-and-over again. It’s a delight to hear kate & co. Revisit this music with such a playful, collaborative spirit. Pleased to report that the joyous, immediate energy onstage remains seriously infectious on these recordings.

Room for the Moon Live is available now on limited edition double lp in hand stamped and numbered jackets direct from the RVNG webstore and Bandcamp page, and digitally everywhere.

More music, motion, and magic from Kate NV’s Room for the Moon Live. A memorable, much beloved moment from the original record, “Telefon” rides again, shining in a buoyant, jammed-out performance from Kate and her incredible band. Stellar sounds once again accompanied by some great footage of that evening in action ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆⏾.

Room for the Moon Live arrives this Friday June 13, and is available for preorder now as a limited edition double LP in hand stamped and numbered jackets, or digitally, direct from the RVNG webstore.

Ariel Kalma has passed away, at the age of 78, at his home in the main arm locality of new south wales, Australia, surrounded by his dear family: Ama, his life partner, his son Joel and daughter-in-law Becka, and his grandchildren. After contending with many health challenges over the past several years, his departure was sudden though peaceful.

Ariel and I first began speaking in december of 2012 around the idea of having him collaborate with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe on what would become FRKWYS vol. 12: We Know Each Other Somehow. After months of messaging, and a fortuitous meeting of Ariel and Robert in San Francisco, Robert and I traveled to Australia, met up with our friends Misha and Joey, and spent almost two weeks with Ariel making music, documenting natural sounds and sights, sharing an unreal amount of laughter, and generally basking in the glow of Ariel.

During that trip, Ariel and I began exploring his music archives, both incredibly rich and deep. Ariel’s travels as a young Parisian lead him all over the world to collaborate with fellow musicians, and after he returned to Paris, he found his own sound manifesting magically and magnificently. His self-titled album and Osmose, from 1975 and 1978 respectively, formed the creative period where we focused our attention for Ariel’s first archival collection, An Evolutionary Music.

I would not visit Ariel again in Australia, but he traveled the states to play a number of shows with Robert after the collection and collaboration had been released. It was such a joy seeing the two push forward their work beyond the album. I have such a vivid memory of Ariel resting on our family’s living room couch after one of these shows, a giant smile on his face reminiscing about the experience, his eyes following the notes played through the air. Beatific and grateful, in touch with an unspoken, unseen force

My heart hurts, Ariel, but is so full of love from the creative, transformative experiences shared, the laughter, the relationship that you leave with dear Ama and your family. I can only express gratitude with this grieving, and promise to honor your legacy in big and small ways. So much love ~

All things must pass, but sometimes they return, Remote Control, JJ Weihl’s solo debut under the Discovery Zone moniker, re-emerges in a celebratory five year anniversary edition from RVNG and Mansions and Millions.

JJ’s rumination on the mundanity of the technosocial present / the boredom of our future has only become more resonant, darkly funny, and earwormish as the years have passed. Remote Control found JJ joining up with enigmatic french producer and frequent collaborator E/T, and Fenster bandmate Lucas Chantre (aka World Brain), to cook up some stone cold DZ classics such as “Dance II and the title track – the sounds of the future crafted with the tools of the past.

Remote Control begins shipping in the next week or two from RVNG HQ, and will be available in a wider way September 12. Order the Purple Marble vinyl edition with a custom holographic sticker, from our webstore or Bandcamp.

Photo by Lucas Chantre