THE RED BARN SESSIONS

Son of the Velvet Rat & The Ghost and the Machine

Son of the Velvet Rat, in partnership with the Ghost and the Machine (the professional alias of Austrian singer-songwriter Andi Lechner), follow up on the former’s 2024 standout album Ghost Ranch with the release of their collaboration The Red Barn Sessions. The album also includes 2 acoustic covers by SotVR.
The new recordings feature a rawer, more immediate sound than previous albums, with Lechner’s National resonator guitar often tuned down several steps to add an ominous underpinning to the music.

Son of the Velvet Rat divide their time between their home in Graz, Austria and Joshua Tree in California’s high desert. Their songs reflect a sonic landscape stretching from the Old World romanticism of Jacques Brel or Fabricio de Andre to the visionary realm of American balladeers like Bill Callahan or Michael Hurley. Lechner hails from Vienna, Austria, where aside from helming Ghost and the Machine, he is a much-in-demand session guitarist.

These songs were recorded live at Gar Robertson’s Red Barn Recorders in Morongo Valley, just down the hill from Joshua Tree. Rounding out the rhythm section are fellow desert-dwellers Janie Cowan (Bob Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom) on standup bass and Danny Frankel (Lou Reed, Spain, She & Him) on drums and percussion.

The album’s spectrum ranges from a posthumous homage to David Lynch, called Inland Empire, the rhythmic tour de force of Blue Ribbon to an acoustic cover of MC5’s masterpiece Let Me Try, the dynamic from ferocious noise to fragile folk.
Improvisation alternates with composed passages - with colors and transitions being hazy and obscured. The Red Barn Sessions capture the poetry created by the confluence of these blurry shades. (Paul Cullum)