NEWS: Ra Ra Riot Announces 10th Anniversary Edition of The Orchard
NEWS: Ra Ra Riot Announces 10th Anniversary Edition of The Orchard
Can’t talk, we’re too busy Ra Ra Rioting!
Words By: Amanda Marano
Iconic indie rock band, Ra Ra Riot has just announced the release of the 10th Anniversary Edition of The Orchard, due out on August 24th. Originally released in the summer of 2010, The Orchard was the band’s second studio album and was nominated for the Independent Music Award for Best Pop Album. While special release will be an exclusive digital LP, it will include remixes by RAC [“Boy” ] and Anamanaguchi [“Too Dramatic” ], their cover of Sparks’ “Saccharin And The War”, and alternate versions of “Too Dramatic” and “Keep It Quiet”.
The original album was a versatile and triumphant sophomore album for the band. With hits like the energetic yet melancholy “Boy,” to pop hit “Too Dramatic,” to the catchy “Oklahoma!” and the moody “You and I Know,” the anniversary offers so much to celebrate.
Today, the band has also released Live In Kyoto 2010 on all streaming platforms. While the band was searching for material to help celebrate the 10th-anniversary release, they came across a live set from their first show in Japan in 2010. The recovered set was recorded a month before the initial release, and features some of the first live versions of “Boy” and “Too Dramatic”.
The Orchard (10th Anniversary Edition) follows Ra Ra Riot’s album The Rhumb Line, and a 10th Anniversary Tour, which sold out nationwide in 2018. Last summer, the band continued to expand their discography and shared their fifth LP, Superbloom, which achieved widespread praise from fans and critics alike.
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.”
“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.”
Don’t forget to pre-save The Orchard (10th Anniversary Edition) [linked below] – but in the meantime, enjoy the original release of The Orchard in addition to Live In Kyoto 2010, available on all platforms. With all this music to experience for the first time or to reminisce on – Ra Ra Riot will surely keep you busy for the rest of the week.
