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For Heads, By Heads.

A dispatch certain eyes might observe accompanying our various drops, now adorning our first limited merch drop of the new year. The message means that our ware is made with the best intentions, sustainable means, and high hopes for inter-connectivity through sound and sight. It’s also an invitation for all into the “know,” where the price of admission is just a listen.

Our For Heads, By Heads wide totes and For Sleepyheads, By Sleepyheads XXL Sleeper Tees were produced by Everybody in Los Angeles and screen-printed by Shoestring Press in Brooklyn. Both are made from 100% recycled cotton in local facilities committed to ethical work practices.

All proceeds from the sleeper tee will benefit The Door; a youth center in New York City whose mission is to empower young people to reach their potential by providing comprehensive youth development services in a diverse and caring environment.

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Making its way through our world, and destined for worlds beyond, Pauline Anna Strom’s Angel Tears in Sunlight ~

It took a perfectly round 33 years between Pauline’s last transmission of music and this collection culled from a stream of work she composed over the past couple years. The timing couldn’t be more surreal, with Pauline’s departure from this realm in December. One part of us grieves this moment for our collective loss and for Pauline missing the outpouring of love for her and her music, one part finds comfort in the cosmic poetry and knowing pauline’s peace and place within the infinite has been found.

On the occasion, a visual assemblage from pauline’s earthly belongings and companions, Little Soulstice and Miss Huff, resting now on the northern coast of California. Collected, captured and collaged by Aubrey Trinnaman.

We celebrate Pauline’s life and vision around this new album, and we vow to preserve her legacy. Thank you to everyone that has supported this effort in direct and indirect ways.

We miss you so, so much, Paula.

A companion across time, our Trans Millenia Consort. Pauline Anna Strom, or Paula when you got to know her, was both made for our unusual present time and completely, cosmically out of step with it. She lived an intentionally hermetic and therefore extraordinary life in all that she accomplished, fiercely independent despite her visual impairment.

It did not clock when Paula failed to return a voicemail I left this past Friday to coordinate another interview around her forthcoming album. We had been in touch so frequently over the past several months with this new music on the horizon that I’d clearly taken her availability for granted.

While Paula’s recovery from a fall in early 2019 that resulted in a broken hip and intensive surgery took the time needed, her health appeared otherwise fine. I visited her in San Francisco earlier this year before the world went sideways to verify this, and she remained dutifully locked down and in place through the pandemic to avoid risk to  exposure.

So, the suddenness of loss makes her passing all the more devastating. While there were certainly stretches of time over the past decade when I might not hear from her (or her from me), her force was always felt invariably if not in mysterious ways. This same energy has attracted so many listeners to Paula’s music and world-building, and will continue to endure and evolve.

It’s hard knowing that, beyond the sacred catalog of music that she leaves behind, those intimate interactions with Paula, her concurrently cantankerous and compassionate spirit leading our long telephone conversations down so many corridors and her wild, vivid dreams of creative places she wanted to explore, are but memories to retrace.

It was such a joy bringing more people into Paula’s immediate circle to experience and engage with this spirit over the past few years. While Paula was private, and might prefer the company of her “dinosaurs” Little Soulstice and Ms Huff, two lizards that cohabited her home, she was also warm and welcoming. She was loyal, and she held a true compass of character.

I realize I am barely touching Paula’s legacy in favor of this deeply personal reminiscence, but there will be many opportunities for her accomplishments to take stage. Not the least of which, the new music that she was so excited to finally share. For now, a signal for everyone that knew Paula as an extraordinary vessel of sound. Please find some time to lose yourself in that, and come back to embrace those you love.

I am heartbroken ~ So much love for you, Paula.

Matt / RVNG

PS – Little Soulstice and Ms Huff are safe with San Francisco Animal Care & Control. We are working on a solution for their care, but if anyone is interested in adopting, please reach out to us at [email protected]

Ka Baird’s Vivification Exercises, a recording for piano, voice, and electronics that references an invigorated consciousness, is primarily based on a presentation at Roulette’s Brooklyn theater in May of 2018. The event added to Baird’s history of performances that embrace the physical and visceral, though the musical, provocative sounds this time exorcised from both her body and the piano’s.

200 cassettes are available to pre-order here. This is the first in a series of Exercises by Ka Baird.

a fine day for the final day of our new site sale ~ take 20% off all non-pre-order titles from RVNG Intl, Beats In Space, Commend and Freedom To Spend w/ code “2020vision”