Singer-guitarist Ray Vale of Slow Burn Drifters selected their tantalizing band name โfor what someoneโs about to hear,โ exemplifying his dark, dreamy, elegiacally timeless vocals and guitars,. Heโs joined by the resplendent piano playing of Violet Booth on their album Golden, out March 7th, 2025. Valeโs dramatic and passionate wide-screen vocals and songs and playing will please devoted fans of artists like Nick Drake and Scott Walker, and of the kind of music that haunts the frames of David Lynch films.
Vale grew up in Northern NJ looking at the Manhattan skyline, and now heโs living in Austria looking at a very different boundary between earth and sky. Vale has written all the songs for Golden, the debut full- length for Slow Burn Drifters, but this is Valeโs 12th album (with 11 others under another name). โIn comparison to the other records Iโve put out, this one is more personal; itโs also more melodic,โ Vale reveals. โAdditionally, Violetโs piano plays a key role in most songs, whereas it was more textural and decorative in the past.โ
The jouissance behind the band name is how it resonates with the beauty and terror of literature, cinema, and other, forms of expression. โOn top of that, when I look around, it seems like the average attention span is shrinking by the hour,โ Vale says. โA film, book, or song that’s a โslow burnโ is on the verge of extinction, but it’s exactly what we cherish: things that need to be absorbed and lived in to be understood: Romance, tragedy, and transformation โฆโ
As for what the ten-song cycle Golden is about, Vale explains โI heard an interview once where someone was asked about eternity,โ Vale says. โI think it might’ve been Joseph Campbell, and he said something like, โEternity isn’t a long time; it’s what stands outside of time.โ That always stuck with meโthe album title refers to that state of being, or a part of us that remains unchanged by time and moves past the appearance of separateness, like sunrise and sunset, it’s a song about pain and loss, hope, or anything in between, that’s the golden prism through which the album’s songs are being viewed.โ
Additional players to Ray and Violet for Golden include the legendary drummer Jack Irons; and the inimitable guitarist Alain Johannes; augmented by the resplendent atmospherics of saxophonist Chris Ward and Matt Owens on trumpet. Vale himself plays also bass and a spare use of synths on the album as well.
Golden was recorded and produced by Vale at his own studio in Austria, who also mixed the record with Martin Biegger. Golden was impeccably mastered by Dave Gardner. Vale wants listeners to feel like they’re going through an emotional pleasure-pain ritual that’s opening their hearts; โthey want to surrender to it,โ Vale explains. โThe more they listen, the more their life feels like a film, and they’re less alone in it somehow; they know someone else understands. That’s what I’d like.โ
Other highlights from Golden includes the desperately aching title track, the gorgeous โOne Decision Away.โ and the bracing and bold opening song โThe Wind.โ The musical DNA of these dark hymns can be traced to crepuscular anthems like โPlay With Fireโ and โSweet Thing,โ โThe Crystal Ship,โ and โWalk On Byโ; creepy twilight coolness, oozing mod cool.
Genre-wise, itโs alternative-indie, dream-pop, and gothic-Americana โ but its swirling, transcendent sound should really be called โfilm music.โ โI think of our songs as being modern in a timeless sort of way, but theyโd also be at home between the songs playing from a handheld radio in an open window tuned to the local AM stationโthe one that plays Motown hits and a cast of singer-songwriters from days gone by.โ
SOURCE: Official Bio
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/SlowBurnDrifters
https://www.instagram.com/slowburndriftersofficial/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2vdjPGfTORUsJbKbDGFmxs
