NEWS

Always Coming Home: A Sonic Journey From Kesh

For this month’s FTSxNTS, Freedom To Spend’s monthly show on NTS, Andrea Zarza Canova reimagines Ursula K. Le Guin’s world of the Kesh by mixing Ursula and Todd Barton’s music, ethnographic recordings of Yurok, Tolowa, and Papago performers, and oral excerpts from Always Coming Home.

In Always Coming Home (1985), Ursula K. Le Guin develops a fictional ethnography of an invented Pacific Coast peoples from a far distant time, the Kesh, survivors of an ecological catastrophe in Northern California. Early editions were published with an accompanying cassette containing ‘field recordings’ and indigenous song, which Freedom To Spend reissued in March 2018.

Listen back to Andrea’s mix and read the full editorial over at NTS.

Andrea Zarza Canova is a sound archivist, curator at the British Library Sound Archive, and co-founder of Mana Records.

January 22, 2020

Andras – River Red

We celebrate “River Red,” the second single from Andras‘ Joyful, with a video by Carla Uriarte.

On behalf of Andras, a portion of proceeds from this release will benefit the Invasive Species Council as part of our ongoing Come! Mend! Initiative.

Joyful is available on LP and digital formats on January 31, 2020 via Beats In Space Records. Learn more here.

January 15, 2020

Julianna Barwick – Circumstance Synthesis

~ Out Now ~

Now playing / streaming / soaring ~ Julianna Barwick’s Circumstance Synthesis, the second release on Commend There, traces a day using generative music technology triggered by activity in the NYC sky.

Available now in digital + cassette formats. Learn more here.

December 20, 2019

RIYL-ty Bytes: Sign Libra

Each month, we invite an artist from the cast of characters that color the RVNG, Beats In Space, and Freedom To Spend universe to compile 15 – 20 tracks that are resonating with them.

From Sign Libra, to you ~

hello Listener,

In this RIYL-TY Bytes playlist, you will meet otherworldly sounds that might evoke surrealistic visions and levitating feeling, reflected in several releases and re-releases of RVNG Intl. Some kind of pointillistic aural voyage from mid ’70s till the latest experiments in contemporary popular music. The playlist includes also my favourite composition of 2019 – a mindblowing intergalactic anthem “New Tribe” by Powder in a combination with its perfectly visualised video by AC-bu !

Enjoy the listen and, maybe, from this compilation you will get to know something more about this weird music world from the inside ~ d(⋆‿⋆)b ~

Sign Libra


  1. “From A Common Center” – K. Leimer
  2. “yxo EAR” – Kate NV
  3. “Music Is Painting In The Air” – Sensations Fix
  4. “Just a Little Pollution” – Borden, Ferraro, Godin, Halo & Lopatin
  5. “Stationary Dance” – Savant
  6. “Chorus” – Holly Herndon
  7. “Dreamplay 2” – Michele Mercure
  8. “Derails Suggest Fidelity To Fact” – Cassel Webb, Craig Leon, Terre Roche
  9. “Spiritus Operis” – Ka Baird
  10. “Music Works for Industry” – Marc Barreca
  11. “Closed Circuit” – Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
  12. “Emphasis” – Harold Grosskopf
  13. “Frame” – Visible Cloaks
  14. “New Tribe” – Powder
  15. “Sunshine” – Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, The Congos


RIYL-ty Bytes is updated by a different artist each month. If you like something, save it to your library.

December 16, 2019

Bundle Up – Winter Sale

Friends & Fiends.

We’ve donated over $3,500 in funds to more than 10 different charities in 2019 alone thanks to each and every one of you – your purchases of a RVNG LP or CD directly helps an organization of our artists’ choosing through the Come! Mend! initiative.

As a thank you for your support, we’ve compiled a digital compilation on Bandcamp for free / pay what you want, gathering singles from 2019 and a very special surprise bonus track.

The digital comp is included with purchase of these year-in-review bundles: our best selling LPs and CDs of 2019; Helado Negro’s This Is How You Smile and Live at KCRW (with smiley bumper sticker – last ones left!); a grip of Freedom To Spend classics; and both brand new Commend There tapes at a friendly discount for easy stocking stuffers.

Explore the range of discounted items in our SALE collection here. We’ve added a few more titles and offering goods for as cheap as 50% off. The sale runs through December 18th and is exclusive to the RVNG store.

More thoughts on 2019 to come – for now, enjoy the dive into our year’s catalog.

RVNG Intl.

December 6, 2019

Melanie Velarde “Another Para” + Commend There

Commend There is a new series collecting and presenting music materialized beyond Commend’s four-ish walls that still maintains a special connection to our space station. 

If you aren’t familiar, Commend is RVNG’s storefront and community space located in the Lower East Side of NYC. Coming up on our five year anniversary, Commend has provided a space for people to congregate and connect through music, meetings, and so much more.

Melanie Velarde, keeper of temporaryarchives and faithful stenographer of the world’s mysterious blur, returns with Bez, her latest reminiscence of sound and the inaugural installment of Commend There.

Enjoy the video for “Another Para,” Bez’s first offering, directed by Melanie, below:

Learn more here.

November 21, 2019

Helado Negro and the Smile Band – Live at KCRW

OUT NOW

As Helado Negro and the Smile Band, Roberto Carlos Lange and his faithful music-making companions recreate the sounds of This Is How You Smile for Live at KCRW, a recording of the ensemble’s inspired performance on Jason Bentley’s Morning Becomes Eclectic.

Learn more here.

November 15, 2019

Colin Self – Orphans

Colin Self follows up his 2018 album Siblings with Orphans, an EP of three new original recordings alongside a Planningtorock remix of “Survival,” a track from Siblings.

In part a prequel to Siblings, Orphans continues to center non-biological family storytelling based on the forgotten, unnamed, and marginalized. At Orphans‘ nucleus is the eternal child, left to their own devices to survive through pleasure-seeking, creative community-building, and imaginative strategizing.

We celebrate Orphans‘ release with a video for “Dispossessed” by Nico Gogan featuring Charlene Incarnate’s performance of the piece.

Learn more here.

November 12, 2019