Album Notes

„The most beautiful and most touching music being created today ... soft can be very loud,“ wrote now! magazine about Son of the Velvet Rat’s „Playground“ album, and ranked it in 2nd place on its list of this country’s most outstanding musical works of 2006. Der Kurier, a top Vienna daily, brought out the ultimate superlatives, calling Georg Altziebler „the best singer/songwriter this country has ever produced“. The Hamburger Morgenpost called the album’s songs „very lonely, very sad and of immense beauty“.

Now, a year later, Son of the Velvet Rat is ready to release the follow-up: „Loss & Love“ - 14 songs full of melancholy, longing and fragility. But new times evoke new narratives and new emotions. „Loss & Love“ sounds more forceful, more demanding and rougher than its predecessor, though without losing its touching intimacy and simplicity.

Georg Altziebler, in his own words: „Loss & Love - two sides of a coin. Or: Siamese twins whose separation seldom succeeds. It’s not that the songs on this new album are strategically designed to revolve around this conceptual pair, but it nevertheless remains the constant that’s engraved into the music. In retrospect, Loss & Love are what remain.“

What likewise remain are facts - stuff that Altziebler doesn’t particularly like to make a big deal about but that are worth mentioning anyway. „Loss & Love“ was recorded at 16-Ton Studio in Nashville TN with Ken Coomer, formerly of the US indie band Wilco, involved as producer and drummer. Recording and mixing were by Charlie Brocco, who’s worked with such greats as B. B. King and the Talking Heads. The combination
of Nashville, Altziebler, Coomer and Brocco has audibly succeeded, the result is European neo-folk chanson with a shot of alternative country.

Another notable development is the instrumental enhancement: „Playground“ got by primarily with guitar, bass, harmonica and vocals, whereas „Loss & Love“ features such sound rarities as the Optigan (a veteran of the ‘70s that could be termed the forerunner of classic sampling machines), the cello and the Hammond organ. Though they’re by no means there as allusions to the history of rock music, but rather as stylistic devices that dovetail beautifully with the songs and the moods they engender.

The search for the artistic influences on Georg Altziebler’s current oeuvre leads to some rather obscure sources. One example is Fred Cole, singer and songwriter of the US garage rock/punk band Dead Moon, which disbanded in 2006 after 20 years together. „Out in the Blue“, the only cover version on „Loss & Love“, comes from Cole.

Some people might be wondering why SotVR prefers to release recordings precisely in the summer months - after all, you would think that music guaranteed to moisten eyes and move hearts would be better suited to dismal winter days. But consider, if you will, an alternative scenario: oppressively humid midday heat, withered patches of lawn and dusty streets; you’re sitting in a creaky rocking chair on a veranda overlooking the Cumberland River, the Danube Canal or the rooftops of a city somewhere on this gray-blue planet, waiting for the sun to go down ...

Yet another captivating vision, another chance to get carried away and a fresh impetus to follow Georg Altziebler on velvety rats paws into his landscape of the soul.

Worth mentioning as well are the album’s additional goodies: three live bonus tracks and the Ford Brothers’ wonderful video accompaniment to the song „Are the Angels Pretty?“.