Ra Ra Riot

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  • Ra Ra Riot - Need Your Light

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  • Ra Ra Riot - Absolutely (Official Lyric Video)

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  • Ra Ra Riot - Water (Official Video)

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  • Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love

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  • Ra Ra Riot - When I Dream

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  • Ra Ra Riot - Too Dramatic

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  • Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard

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Need Your Light

Buy Need Your Light

Stream Need Your Light

Friday February 19th, 2016
DD | CD | LP



Need Your Light, the fourth full-length from Brooklyn's Ra Ra Riot, is the sound of a band being reinvigorated by its own existence. Correspondingly, the album sees the band - Wes Miles (vocals), Mathieu Santos (bass), Milo Bonacci (guitar), Rebecca Zeller (violin), and Kenny Bernard (drums) - getting back to their house party roots without abandoning the more heady soundscapes they explored with 2013's Beta Love. The result is an album that's celebratory without being solipsistic and that sees the group collectively mining its prior experiences in order to craft something that looks toward the future with an optimistic gaze.


  •           1.   Water
  •           2.   Absolutely
  •           3.   Foreign Lovers
  •           4.   I Need Your Light
  •           5.   Bad Times
  •           6.   Call Me Out
  •           7.   Instant Breakup
  •           8.   Every Time I'm Ready To Hug
  •           9.   Bouncy Castle
  •           10.   Suckers


Beta Love

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Tuesday January 22nd, 2013
CD | DD | LP



Ra Ra Riot's third album Beta Love is set for release January 22. The album marks the band's first outing as a four piece with members Wes Miles on vocals, Milo Bonacci on guitar, Mathieu Santos on bass and Rebecca Zeller on violin forming the core of the group. The recording process found band members exploring and re-defining their roles within the new makeup of the group. Beta Love's songs are informed by the works of cyperpunk novelist William Gibson and futurist Ray Kurzweil's musings on the technological singularity and transhumanism.

Inspired by their lean new lineup, Ra Ra Riot built upon demos created mostly by Miles and producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello, Wavves) at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, MS. For the first time in their history, Ra Ra Riot recorded in a warmer climate and found themselves stimulated by the balmy Southern air and the physical setting of Oxford. Joined by session drummer Josh Freese (Devo, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer), the band enjoyed exploring its potential, experimenting with new influences and exciting sounds.

Mathieu said of the sessions that "Recording the record was a lot of fun for us, because we were in a completely different environment, trying a completely new approach. We'd been used to arriving at a session with every song totally arranged and figured out, but in Oxford, a lot of the creative decision-making happened in the studio, on the fly. We wanted to be outside of our collective comfort zone for this record. We wanted to be open to new things happening. There was a lot of building up and tearing down, a lot of problem solving, a lot of trial and error, and that was really exciting for us."Formed in the basements and attics surrounding Syracuse University in 2006, Ra Ra Riot released their debut The Rhumb Line on Barsuk in 2008. NPR Music said their 2010 release The Orchard's "10 songs positively burst with sophistication, precision and polish."


  •           1.   Dance With Me
  •           2.   Binary Mind
  •           3.   Beta Love
  •           4.   Is It Too Much
  •           5.   For Once
  •           6.   Angel, Please
  •           7.   What I Do For U
  •           8.   When I Dream
  •           9.   That Much
  •           10.   Wilderness
  •           11.   I Shut Off


When I Dream

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Tuesday December 11th, 2012
DD





  •           1.   When I Dream


Too Dramatic

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Tuesday March 29th, 2011
DD



"Too Dramatic" single will be available via Arts & Crafts in Canada on March 8th. The single will include "Megafauna", a previously unreleased song from The Orchard sessions, an alternate version of The Orchard favorite "Keep It Quiet" by one of the band's many alter-egos, GOP, and a remix by The Morning Benders.



  •           1.   Too Dramatic
  •           2.   Megafauna
  •           3.   Too Dramatic (Morning Benders Remix)
  •           4.   Keep It Quiet (GOP)


The Orchard

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Tuesday August 24th, 2010
CD | LP | DD



Syracuse, NY quintet Ra Ra Riot will release their sophomore full-length on August 24, 2010. Produced by the band with Andrew Maury and mixed by Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie and Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend, The Orchard is 10 bittersweet, endearing and ultimately stunning offerings. The Orchard follows the band's debut full-length, The Rhumb Line, which was released nearly two years to the day and hailed by such publications as Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and Exclaim! which called it, "worthy of a living room dance party". With glowing praise and relentless touring, the album went on to sell over 60,000 copies in the U.S.


  •    1.   The Orchard
  •    2.   Boy
  •    3.   Too Dramatic
  •    4.   Foolish
  •    5.   Massachusetts
  •    6.   You And I Know
  •    7.   Shadowcasting
  •    8.   Do You Remember
  •    9.   Kansai
  •    10.   Keep It Quiet



November 5th, 2016
Holland, MI
Dimnent Chapel
 
October 30th, 2016
Portland, OR
Mississippi Studios
 
October 15th, 2016
Las Vegas, NV
The Bunkhouse Saloon
 
October 14th, 2016
Phoenix, AZ
The Crescent Ballroom
 
October 13th, 2016
Tucson, AZ
191 Toole
 
October 12th, 2016
Albuquerque,
Launchpad
 
October 11th, 2016
El Paso, TX
Lowbrow Palace
 
October 9th, 2016
Austin, TX
Austin City Limits Music Festival
 
October 8th, 2016
Dallas, TX
Southside Ballroom
 
October 7th, 2016
Houston, TX
Revention Music Center
 
October 3rd, 2016
Little Rock, AR
Revolution Music Room
 
September 28th, 2016
Lawrence, KS
Liberty Hall
 
September 26th, 2016
Ames, IA
The Maintenance Shop
 
September 7th, 2016
Buffalo, NY
The Waiting Room
 
June 5th, 2016
Toronto, ON
Field Trip Music & Arts Festival
 
April 15th, 2016
Montreal, QC
Bar Le Ritz PDB
 
April 14th, 2016
Toronto, ON
Lee's Palace
 
March 31st, 2016
Vancouver, BC
Biltmore Cabaret
 
July 13th, 2013
Ottawa, ON
RBC Royal Bank Ottawa Bluesfest
 
June 8th, 2013
Toronto, ON
Fort York and Garrison Common
 
March 7th, 2013
Montreal, QC
Il Motore
 
March 6th, 2013
Toronto, ON
Lee's Palace
 
February 7th, 2013
Vancouver, BC
Venue Nightclub
 
November 22nd, 2011
Harrisburg, PA
The Abbey Bar
 
November 21st, 2011
Pittsburgh, PA
Carnegie Music Hall
 
November 19th, 2011
Madison, WI
The Sett at Union South
 
November 18th, 2011
Chicago, IL
Metro
 
November 17th, 2011
Iowa City, IA
Blue Moose Tap House
 
November 16th, 2011
Lincoln, NE
Bourbon Theatre
 
November 15th, 2011
Boulder, CO
Fox Theatre
 
November 11th, 2011
San Francisco, CA
Great American Music Hall
 
November 10th, 2011
Los Angeles, CA
The El Rey Theatre
 
November 9th, 2011
Solana Beach, CA
The Belly Up
 
November 8th, 2011
Tucson, AZ
Club Congress
 
November 7th, 2011
Santa Fe,
Santa Fe Brewing Company
 
November 5th, 2011
Austin, TX
Fun Fun Fun Fest
 
November 3rd, 2011
Dallas, TX
Granada Theatre
 
November 2nd, 2011
Edmond, OK
ACM @ UCO
 
October 31st, 2011
Memphis, TN
Hi Tone
 
October 30th, 2011
Birmingham, AL
Bottletree
 
October 29th, 2011
Atlanta, GA
The Earl
 
October 28th, 2011
Carrboro, NC
Cat's Cradle
 
October 26th, 2011
Washington, DC
9:30 Club
 
October 20th, 2011
Boston, MA
Paradise Rock Club
 
October 14th, 2011
Pensacola, FL
DeLuna Fest
 
October 13th, 2011
Gainesville, FL
Reitz Ballroom at University of Florida
 
October 8th, 2011
Montreal, QC
Il Motore
 
October 7th, 2011
Ottawa, ON
Mavericks Bar
 
October 6th, 2011
Toronto, ON
Lee's Palace
 
October 5th, 2011
Waterloo, ON
Starlight Room
 
October 4th, 2011
Grand Rapids, MI
Pyramid Scheme
 
October 2nd, 2011
Minneapolis, MN
Fine Line Cafe
 
October 1st, 2011
Winnipeg, MB
Pyramid Cabaret
 
September 30th, 2011
Regina, SK
The Exchange
 
September 29th, 2011
Edmonton, AB
Avenue Theatre
 
September 28th, 2011
Calgary, AB
The Gateway
 
September 26th, 2011
Nelson, BC
The Royal
 
September 25th, 2011
Kelowna, BC
Habitat
 
September 24th, 2011
Vancouver, BC
The Malkin Bowl - Stanley Park
 
September 23rd, 2011
Victoria, BC
Rifflandia Festival
 
September 22nd, 2011
Bellingham, WA
Western Washington University
 
September 10th, 2011
Valparaiso, IN
Sourcestock 2011
 
July 14th, 2011
Ottawa, ON
RBC Royal Bank Ottawa Bluesfest
 
January 29th, 2011
Vancouver, BC
Biltmore Cabaret
 
January 28th, 2011
Victoria, BC
Sugar
 
December 4th, 2010
Kingston, ON
Chalmers United Church
 
December 3rd, 2010
Montreal, QC
Il Motore
 
December 1st, 2010
Toronto, ON
The Mod Club
 
November 20th, 2010
Winnipeg, MB
Garrick Centre
 
November 19th, 2010
Saskatoon, SK
Louis' Pub
 
November 18th, 2010
Edmonton, AB
Edmonton Events Centre
 
November 17th, 2010
Calgary, AB
MacEwan Ballroom
 
November 16th, 2010
Nelson, BC
Hume Hotel - Spirit Bar
 
November 14th, 2010
Whistler, BC
Garibaldi Lift Co.
 
November 13th, 2010
Vancouver, BC
The Commodore Ballroom
 
August 28th, 2010
Toronto, ON
Molson Amphitheatre
 
August 1st, 2010
Montreal, QC
Osheaga Music and Arts Festival
 

Need Your Light, the fourth full-length from Brooklyn's Ra Ra Riot, is the sound of a band being reinvigorated by its own existence. Correspondingly, the album sees the band - Wes Miles (vocals), Mathieu Santos (bass), Milo Bonacci (guitar), Rebecca Zeller (violin), and Kenny Bernard (drums) - getting back to their house party roots without abandoning the more heady soundscapes they explored with 2013's Beta Love. The result is an album that's celebratory without being solipsistic and that sees the group collectively mining its prior experiences in order to craft something that looks toward the future with an optimistic gaze. 

Ra Ra Riot had planned for a longer break after Beta Love. However, after a few months, they couldn't help themselves from working on new music. "The inspiration came very quickly," Miles says, explaining that he decided to fly out to Los Angeles to work with previous producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse,Elvis Costello) in order to start fleshing out ideas. Shortly afterward, the group went on a writing trip to Milwaukee, then found themselves crafting Need Your Light with a host of previous collaborators, including Ryan Hadlock in Seattle (who produced 2008's The Rhumb Line) and Andrew Maury in Brooklyn (a longtime friend, collaborator and live sound engineer who also co-produced 2010's The Orchard). 

Also in the mix - as he has been since the band's inception - is Vampire Weekend's Rostam. He has a long history of working with Ra Ra Riot (including the Discovery project with Miles), yet this marks the first time he's actually taken on the role of producer for the band. Discussing the process behind "Water" and the title track, Rostam states: 

"Between 2005-2009, Wes and I wrote an album together in snatched moments in our lives... That record (the Discovery LP) seemed to benefit from us having the freedom to pick it up and put it down.  In January of this year, Wes came to stay with me, and we set out to write songs again. We didn't know where it would take us. There was something I'd heard in Wes' singing in the earliest days of seeing Ra Ra Riot live that I felt had never quite been captured on record. There was our shared love of U2's Achtung Baby, something that having listened to the music we've recorded in our lives thus far you might not know about. And also this obsession with writing songs that tell stories. So we spent five days writing just two songs - 'Water' and 'I Need Your Light'- and I think we found that same freedom in making these songs that we had found years ago making the Discoveryrecord, not knowing where it would take us." 

Ra Ra Riot's desire to get back in touch with its roots was also encouraged by the decision to do a short tour of warehouses and basements late last year before reentering the studio to remind them of why they began Ra Ra Riot in the first place. "Because we started as a house party band, we never wanted to lose sight of having fun and engaging with the audience through visceral live shows," Santos says. With Need Your Light, Ra Ra Riot are incorporating their past into the future. 

Whether Miles is singing about something fantastic or mundane, there's an enduring energy to the songs on this album which illustrate that in many ways Ra Ra Riot is still only getting started. 




DOWNLOAD PDF BIOGRAPHY


Nicole Busch





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  [email protected]

     

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The Orchard The Orchard Boy Boy Too Dramatic Too Dramatic Foolish Foolish Massachusetts Massachusetts You And I Know You And I Know Shadowcasting Shadowcasting Do You Remember Do You Remember Kansai Kansai Keep It Quiet Keep It Quiet