Son Of The Velvet Rat Share New Single 'Deeper Shade Of Blue' Ft. Jolie Holland

Son Of The Velvet Rat shared the new single “Deeper Shade Of Blue,” featuring guest vocals from Jodie Holland, off their forthcoming album Ghost Ranch, out on March 22 via Fluff & Gravy / Missing Piece Records.

“This song was written on tour in a little beach motel on the central coast of  California,” explains Georg Altziebler, one half of the folk-noir duo. “Tourists watching the seals while the sun in the west is slowly sinking into the ocean. You're far away from home but - in a strange way - you have arrived. Maybe it's just because you can't go any further, and even if you could it wouldn't make a difference.”

“Deeper Shade Of Blue” follows previous singles “Rosary,” which Americana Highways exclaimed, “the suspense and darkness begins its haunting from the opening note,” and “Beautiful Day,” which Glide Magazine called, “a dreamy work of Americana-laced folk-rock that finds them leaning into a sound that is quietly rocking.”

Son of the Velvet Rat is the alter ego of songwriter Georg Altziebler and his wife Heike Binder, who a decade ago left their hometown of Graz, Austria and the cloistered safety of the Continent for the endless highway of America.

They came to rest in Joshua Tree, on the edge of California's Mojave Desert. They are known for their jagged folk-pop melodies and forbidding ballads, infusing the cabaret traditions of Old World masters like Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Fabrizio De André with the Old Testament prophecy and Kabbalistic visions of Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.

On September 9th, 2022 at the Harrison House in Joshua Tree, Georg and Heike debuted a collection of songs that would later comprise Ghost Ranch. A sacred space to present these new pieces, stripped-down to their most essential elements: two voices; one gruff and anchoring baritone, the other lifting in weathered hope, over six strings danced upon by Georg's possessed spider-fingers, every note plucked with intention.

A bare-boned outpouring, reverberating through the House like Midnight Mass in a rare church brave enough to explore the complexities of love. That night would have to be preserved in the amber of memory until Georg and Heike would properly document the pieces at Gar Robertson's Red Barn Studio in Morongo Valley the following spring, before finishing the album in Austria. 

On Ghost Ranch, drum loops and saloon piano, violin and cicada drones, hanging chimes and pounded metal combine to create a jittery soundtrack for all the true believers and false messiahs, county fairs and shooting ranges, all delivered in what fan and collaborator Lucinda Williams once called Georg's “great sexy-gravelly voice,” leavened by Heike's translucent harmonies, like roses circling a tattooed heart. (Paul Cullum/Gabriel Hart)

Son Of The Velvet Rat have been praised in the past by Paste Magazine, BrooklynVegan, Music Connection Magazine, Magnet Magazine, Americana UK, Folk Radio UK, and many more.

Credit: Elija Kulmer

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