Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard [10th Anniversary Edition] (2010/2020)

Ra Ra Riot is thrilled to announce the release of The Orchard (10th Anniversary Edition), due out on August 24th, 2020 via Barsuk. For this special digital only LP, the band included remixes by RAC ("Boy") and Anamanaguchi ("Too Dramatic"), their cover of Sparks' "Saccharin And The War," while "Too Dramatic" along with "Keep It Quiet" get their own re-imaginings from Ra Ra Riot themselves.

While mining for additional material to celebrate the re-release of The Orchard, the band unearthed a live set from their first trip to Japan. Released today on all streaming platforms, Live In Kyoto 2010 features that newly discovered set which was recorded a month before The Orchard's original release and features some of the earliest live renditions of "Boy" and "Too Dramatic." Bassist Mathieu Santos explains: "It was one of the most fun runs we've ever been on, opening for the Japanese band Asian Kung Fu Generation on their annual summer tour of the country and culminating with two shows at Kyoto's legendary (and astonishingly beautiful) KBS Hall." Listen to the full live album now.

"The Orchard was a special album for us," Santos continued, "And, in a lot of ways, a quintessential sophomore outing. Buoyed and emboldened by the relative success of our debut, The Rhumb Line, and the experience we'd gained making it, we (along with our trusted front-of-house engineer and co-producer Andrew Maury) decided to forego the guidance of an outside producer and elected instead to do everything ourselves. The result was, for better or for worse, a much more unfiltered and idiosyncratic effort: at times exuberant and self-assured; at others, overly dense and haltingly self-conscious."

"Now, with ten years having somehow passed since its release, its story is still unfolding, bearing new fruit in these strange, gnarled fields we once sowed. If a debut record is the sound of a band becoming, The Orchard is the sound of that band wrestling with its own newfound identity: trying to embrace it, refine it, understand it, subvert it." Santos continues. "In some ways, we emerged stronger, nursing new scars, a testament to the growing pains we all must endure."

The Orchard (10th Anniversary Edition) follows a hugely successful 10th Anniversary Tour behind the band's seminal debut album The Rhumb Line which sold out nationwide in 2018. Last summer, Ra Ra Riot released their fifth LP Superbloom to widespread critical acclaim as they continued to expand their vibrant, expansive sonic palette once again.