Sisters of Velveteen: "Secret Sacred Songs"
Sisters Of Velveteen are a three piece female band based somewhere in the southern French countryside, probably on top of a remote hill, maybe in a clearing in an ancient forest or on a windswept beach contemplating the crashing waves.
Ruby writes the lyrics and is on lead vocals, she quite literally embodies, with her deliciously fragile, emotionally charged voice, the tales she tells. Karmin sings and plays the flute, seeming to channel other-worldly birdsong from another dimension, as well as being the percussionist of the band. Josefa plays a crazed accordion, a haunting clarinet and is also on backing vocals, bringing glowing embers and earthy tones to the mix.
The music drifts between strange and shifting shores. There is mist, even fog, there are shafts of sunshine, there are mystical, even mythical, landscapes painted with somewhat off the wall instrumentation and ethereal yet earth-rooted voices. There are tales of love, of course, deception, belief, pain, even anger, but also soothing popesque lullabies and haunting folksy melodies.
As the nights draw in this autumn, Sisters Of Velveteen will be going back into the studio with Slow Down People Records to make their second EP, a companion to the first. Where Secret Sacred Songs (released May 2019) is a journey through intimacy, a diary of love and loss. The forthcoming EP moves from the personal to the universal. It deals with themes closely woven into the fabric of contemporary culture : belonging and finding a way, as a woman, as a human being, as a society.
The sound of their first EP is characterised by a dreamy reverb, creating wide open luminous soundscapes in the darkness and a smooth, haunting sound. The band describe their second record (as yet untitled) as bathed in daylight, bleached saturated percussion, raw bass lines and compression that will take the sound close to breaking point. If you’d like to know where you’d put their disc on your shelf, I would say somewhere between Billie Holiday, Agnès Obel and Dead Can Dance. Sisters Of Velveteen’s sound is, quite simply, something out of the ordinary.
Keep an eye on Sisters of Velveteen by following their social links:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/SistersofVelveteen/about/?ref=page_internal
