Tender / Wading finds Matthew Sage, aka M. Sage,

in the foothills and pastures of Colorado, writing,

recording, and returning to a patch of his homeland

and identity, one act of sympathetic care informing

the next. Constructed primarily on piano and clarinet,

and then embellished with guitar, modular synthesizer,

percussion, and field recordings captured around

the perimeter of his home, the album is a sweeping,

serene vision of vitality, radical softness, and the

reassuring sense of coming home, even if home has

changed.

Since the early 2010s, Sage has assembled

an idiosyncratic catalog of music that sprawls in

various sound directions, manifesting with releases

on Geographic North, Orange Milk, and Moon

Glyph, and garnering both critical attention and a

loyal listenership present for each new turn. In 2023,

Sage debuted on RVNG Intl. With Paradise Crick,

which coincided with his ongoing output within the

improvisatory ambient jazz quartet, Fuubutsushi, and

he now delivers his next solo endeavor and direction.

Tender / Wading follows Sage's return to Colorado

after nearly a decade in Chicago, now nurturing a

couple acres of neglected space with his young family

thirty miles outside his hometown. In a holistic contrast

to Crick's synthetic sound-world, Sage renders art

from the act of stewarding new growth, questioning

constructs of domestic life, and understanding the

footsteps of his former self through the dirt-smeared,

sweat-fogged lens of the present. The yield is his most

autobiographical material to date, marked by time and

changes in perception and