New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Son of the
Velvet Rat (SotVR) celebrates the release of their sixth album Dorado - a golden treasure of desert-inspired tracks produced by the critically acclaimed songwriter and producer, Joe Henry. The album will debut internationally on February 17th, 2017 with a dual release by Fluff & Gravy (CDs and Vinyl) and Mint 400 (Digital Distribution).
"Dorado was recorded quickly over just a few days, and it had to be. The songs as deft pieces of writing had already been well considered, but their articulation needed to be urgent for the mystery at the hear of them to spark and fizz with real-time revelation...Georg and Heike, the husband and wife duo from Austria who are lock-and-key to Son Of The
Velvet Rat - both closing the circle of their shared intention, and springing it open - seem invariably to embody the purest constructs of Americana, all the while scrolling beneath with an outsider's commentary - like subtitles to The Last Movie; like an actor's dubbed voice-over running slightly ahead of the action and giving away the story." Joe Henry, Producer
Alongside this latest album creation with Joe Henry, the band catalogue includes collaborations with other luminaries such as
Lucinda Williams and former
Wilco drummer Ken Coomer.
Peter Jesperson, former producer & manager of The Replacements, put it aptly: "... beautiful and somber music, their lyrics are pure poetry."
Son of the
Velvet Rat is the project of Austrian songwriter and guitarist Georg Altziebler together with his wife Heike Binder on organ and accordion. After years of finding inspiration in the California desert, the couple chose in 2013 to leave behind their impressive band history in Austria, with 5 albums to their credit, and make their home in Joshua Tree. This new endeavor finds the two commuting between the anonymous wasteland of Los Angeles and the fierce but fragile beauty of the high desert, reinventing their creative sphere in a completely different artistic environment.
Their live-performances have quickly garnered SotVR a considerable standing and following amongst the desert music community and beyond. There's a certain strangeness in their music and sound, with its origins woven deeply in the cultural heritage of the European folk-noir and chanson traditions, and it certainly strikes a chord in all who know the grounding force of gravity and still like to dance on the tightrope.
