Name: Velvet Serenade
Brand: Pascal Comelade, Lee Ranaldo, Ramon Prats

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

STAUB169LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2023-06-23

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Shellshock

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

Total Cap

Black LP

STAUB169

Artist

Pascal Comelade

Lee Ranaldo

Ramon Prats

Genre GB

Alternative / Modern

Label GB

Staubgold

Pascal Comelade is a French-Catalan musician born on June 30, 1955 in Montpellier. He gained recognition for his unique style of creating cover songs using unconventional instruments such as the singing saw and toy piano. Throughout his career, Comelade has collaborated with renowned artists including Robert Wyatt, Faust, and PJ Harvey.

Founded in 1998 by musician and journalist Markus Detmer, Staubgold is a German label that provides a platform for various musical styles. Based in Cologne initially, the label later moved to Berlin in 2003 and then to Perpignan, France in 2011. With an extensive catalogue of diverse music, Staubgold aims to inspire, touch, and seduce its listeners.

Catalogue Number 46 features a limited run of *Staubgold Record Bags* produced by Kerstin Nothmann. These bags are adorned with a two-color silk-screen print on white tilt and have dimensions of 35.5cm height x 35.5cm width x 14cm depth. Designed to hold up to 25 LPs, only 100 bags were produced.

Lee Ranaldo is a multi-talented artist, known for his skills as a singer, guitarist, producer, songwriter, writer and visual artist. Born on February 3rd, 1956 in Glen Cove, Long Island (NY, USA), he co-founded Sonic Youth in 1981 and has been actively involved in numerous other projects throughout his career.
With a diverse range of talents and interests, Lee Ranaldo has established himself as a prominent figure in the music industry. His unique style and contributions to Sonic Youth have influenced many artists within the alternative rock genre.
Similar artists to Lee Ranaldo include Thurston Moore, Glenn Branca, Free Kitten, Body/Head, Chelsea Light Moving, Kim Gordon and more. With such an impressive body of work spanning various artistic mediums and collaborations with notable musicians, Lee Ranaldo continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

On occasion of its 25th anniversary, the Staubgold label proudly presents Velvet Serenade. Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and French maverick Pascal Comelade relive The Velvet Underground - a non-nostalgic reinvention of a musical legacy that takes an influential past into the future. For the world premiere of his latest book Linger On: The Velvet Underground — published by Eva and Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace Library — Catalan music journalist Ignacio Julià wanted to relive the New York band’s original dynamics, that creative friction between an American noise-guitar player and poet, Lou Reed, and a radical, lyrical European pianist and songwriter, John Cale. Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and French maverick Pascal Comelade accepted the challenge and the concert took place in Banyoles, Catalonia, on April 28, 2022, as a non-nostalgic reinvention of a musical legacy that takes an influential past into the future.

  Comelade and Ranaldo met for the first time the same day the piece was created from scratch, at Banyoles’ Auditori del Ateneu, and after a few try-outs,  magic happened right away. Local drummer Ramon Prats joined in easily and the three constructed what Ignacio Julià had asked for, not a tribute concert made of more or less faithful covers, but a new thing.   Pascal came with a clear idea of the songs and laid them down with his minimalist, personal style at the grand piano and small keyboard, Lee painted — with guitars, acoustic and electric, used as cellos sometimes, and weird  percussion — the wide palette of emotions these classic songs carry. After months of imagining it, here it was, a fully realized Velvet Serenade. Spontaneous, vibrant and true to the band’s spirit.   "See, I believe in giving back. I might be the only writer that has interviewed all The Velvet Underground’s members through the years, from 1978 to 2022, and all those conversations, articles and experiences are now collected in Linger On: The Velvet Underground, a book that I hope will be shared by next  generations. This Banyoles, Girona, concert was another way of giving back what the band and its members had given me since the mid-Seventies, not just great art in the form of rock’n’roll at its most deep and challenging, but an outlook on life and everything else, an invitation to seek the beauty in truth and try to understand human behaviour."

Velvet Serenade

Music GB