Start Listening To: Velvet Volume
Sister-trio welcomes you into their most fragile and sacred place.
Sister-trio, Velvet Volume, started their sonic exploration early on. Growing up together, they’d jammed, fooled around with instruments and played covers at school events. Today, more self-realized and with tons of DIY scene experience, they comment on being pinned between their Danish and Israeli/Yemeni cultures. From Americana-tinted tracks to working-class ballads, Velvet Volume creates a sound that’s both comfortable and encompasses a need for experimenting. This year they gave it a home - an album, ‘Nest’. Today, sisters guide us through it.
Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
We’re a sister trio from Denmark. Our music touches upon a variety of the different corners of rock music. The album contains an explosive and playful sound that elegantly dances through different references and sounds. It’s swerving through dreamy pop, careless Americana, massive choir sequences, hard riffs, sexy lounge, and club music. The contrasts and differences were necessary so we could embark on the lyrical themes.
How did it all start?
As we grew up together in the same house, we couldn’t help but start from a very young age. It started with us playing cover-songs at events at our school and then slowly building up our name on the bigger scenes in Denmark.
If you were to describe your sound to someone who’d never heard you before, what would you say?
We welcome the listener into our most fragile and sacred place.
Our sound has clearly changed from when we first started and is today much more nuanced, harmonic, and twisted. One moment the listener is wrapped in complex harmonic piano chords with an affectionate whisper of words; in the next, the listener will be faced by an almost acid-like saxophone solo, twisted voices, and very crisp distorted guitars. We would say that our sound is an exciting listening journey.
We have also been playing and trying out lyrical contrasts - within brutal working-class ballads, we sing about the privileged, as well as intimate and tender declarations of love in various guises.
The most important aspect of the album is the treatment of our main artery - our experience of being pinned between our danish and Israeli/Yemeni cultures. We’re raised in Aarhus, in a western white country, with a mother from Denmark and a father from Israel/Yemen. We’ve obviously always known these two cultures as being a part of us, but we’ve never implemented it in our songwriting until recently. Instead of avoiding it, as we’ve done in the past, this time we felt a deep need to use it - the feeling of being disharmonious with the world around us and not belonging anywhere has manifested itself in all aspects of our lives and we felt that now it’s time to bring it into our music too.
How are you feeling about the release of your new album ‘Nest’?
The album has been a kind of healing process for us - we touched on some difficult subjects together with our closest friends and family. So we’re extremely proud of the final product it has created. We hope that people will love it as much as we have done.
Can you tell us more about how you produce your music?
We have been out in the countryside in a small peaceful summerhouse, close to a windblow inlet, together with our best friends. The room was therefore very inspiring and safe to be and work in. We’ve had the possibility to surprise each other and know even deeper personal sides of one another. We dared to be fragile together, which has been a major factor for the album’s sonic landscape.
It’s been a driving force for us to become more attentive towards the fact that no one knows who they are as artists and there’s always a chance to fall in love with creating music, once you dive into it.
What inspires your music?
I think that on this album we have been inspired by the safe space we started creating between us at the beginning of the songwriting process. We opened up conversations about our anxiety, uncertainty and distrust towards the world and also what the world expects from us. There’s a great mysticism in how we became who we are, which has been immensely rewarding to study and a great inspiration for us throughout the album process.
Where did you get your name?
To be honest the name was created in a hurry. We had to come up with a name for an event where we needed a name quickly. We liked the sound of Velvet, from Velvet Underground, and then we thought that matching it with another V-word was cool and “rock” haha. We were 13-15 years old when we came up with the name, so there’s is not really a deeper meaning with it, to be frank.
Can you tell us something interesting about the band that doesn’t have anything to do with music?
Sometimes we like to smoke weed, eat ice cream and listen to Pet Metheny
What advice would you give for anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to your band?
Smoke weed, eat ice cream, and listen to Pet Metheny.
How has Copenhagen influenced your music?
There are a lot of inspiring and creative musicians, producers, sound engineers ect. that we have been very fortunate to work with on our album.
If your music were a film or TV show which would it be?
Maybe a mix between Matrix, Drive and Hang ‘Em High.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you?
George Michael - Ladies & Gentlemen. We have been listening to the album for many years, and to this day we still use George as an inspiration source for our music.
What do you hate right now?
We’ve just received our batch of vinyl for our third album, but there’s a mistake on the print, so we probably have to print new ones which sucks.
What do you love right now?
Writing new music. <3
What comes next in the Velvet Volume story?
After the release of our third album, we will hopefully be able to play shows throughout the year. And maybe, after the summer holidays, we will release something new? ;)
Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
Remember to listen to our newest album Nest and give it some love <3
