THE CRUSHEDVELVETS | EP 1 (OUT NOW) / EP 2 (OUT NOW) / EP 3 (OUT NOW) / LIVE IN STUDIO (OUT NOW)

Bio (2023):

“I was the youngest guy in the stroke wing next to people who were 80 and 90, and the doctors kept passing by asking ‘Why are you here?’”

Last year, Dani Meza of the crushedvelvets spoke to his local newspaper The Desert Sun in Indio, California (he is a native, and still a resident, of the town now best-known for Coachella) about his treatment after suffering an aneurysm and two strokes.

In the interview, writer Bryan Blueskye writes that Meza “described his recovery as ‘experimental’ because it required observation, and there was a great deal of uncertainty. Depending on which part of the brain is affected, rehabilitation includes regaining lost skills such as movement, speech, strength and everyday tasks.”

As a musician, one of those tasks is music-making, and so, following a long road back to a normal life, Meza embarked on a new way of creating that allowed him to make art and keep his health intact.

Throughout 2022, Meza released a series of three-song EPs under the dark and sexy name the crushedvelvets.

Described by Stereo Embers as “dreamy and soulful shuffles that have all the night-kissed grace of Julee Cruise and the poetic finesse of The Jazz Butcher,” Ghettoblaster proclaimed that “the vibe is reaching levels of ultimate leisure.”

It was as if Meza’s physical need to approach music from a more relaxed perspective had allowed him to relax his listeners as well.

“These songs are all about the groove,” Meza said at the time, citing Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Prince as primary influences.

Meza is now wrapping up a full-length debut album with veteran producer Chris Schlarb (Mike Watt, Nels Cline, Sufjan Stevens) at the helm. While working in Schlarb’s Big Ego Studios, Meza decided to cap his 2022 series of EPs as the crushedvelvets with one more.

“Live In Studio” will be released on Dec. 15, 2023 and is a unique companion to Meza’s previous releases in that it was recorded live on the Big Ego studio floor accompanied by a professional multi-camera video shoot.

“We perform two of the song taken from two of the earlier EPs that people liked the most,” Meza says of “Intertwined” and “A Hero’s Sin.” The band also lends its signature sound to a cover of the T. Rex classic “Mambo Sun.”

“‘Mambo Sun’ was just for our pleasure, and to show the diversity of influences on the music I write,” Meza explains. “This song kept coming up in conversation when I would share some of the new music we were recording for the album. I couldn’t ignore the sign when more than a handful of people took it up.”

The musicians joining Meza for this live session comprise the same band that accompanies him on the album he tracked the week after the “Live In Studio” shoot and session went down.

These include Ben Lumsdaine on Drums (Durand Jones), Danny Frankel on Percussion (Lou Reed, Fiona Apple, She and Him), Heather Sommerhauser on Synth (Junatime), and Max Diaz on Bass (scarypoolparty, W I R E S, Broken Baby.)

“This live EP is the closing of a book in order to move on to the next one,” Meza states.

We are fortunate that Meza is here to continue providing us with these soulful sounds of survival.

“Live In Studio,” arriving Dec. 15 with visually stunning performance videos to accompany each of its three tracks, is the fourth and final EP in the crushedvelvets series by Dani Meza.

The debut album by the crushedvelvets is scheduled for release in 2024.

Bio (2022):

After citing Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Prince as influences, it is only natural that Dani Meza of the crushedvelvets concludes, “These songs are all about the groove.”

The nine new tunes by the crushedvelvets are presented three at a time, as if placed on a dark club’s bar like mixed drinks over the course of a mild summer evening.

EP 1 is out now, with the second arriving Sept. 2, and the third on Oct. 21.

For Meza, getting to that stone cold groove meant first getting his own groove back, and not just in the sense of the popular turn of phrase. Meza literally lost his ability to write and perform following an aneurism and stroke.

“These new songs and style came out of necessity,” Meza confides. “The incident forced me to change my perspective on how to write and perform. My vocal delivery had to be more laid back and the groovy pace of these songs keeps me from over-stimulating myself.”

The circumstances surrounding these recordings are out of the ordinary, but for listeners, they are even more alive with Meza’s soul and survival because of it.

“These songs were written while I was healing and the influences on this sound and these songs comes from the variety of musicians and bands that I listened to while I was recovering,” he says.

In addition to the aforementioned artists, Meza also mentions Serge Gainsbourg, Julee Cruise, and Erik Satie.

“I wanted to combine my love of R&B and Soul music with surreal sounds and imagery,” he explains.

With this concept in mind, Meza knew he should reach out to producer Chris Schlarb, an artist in his own right with several releases on Sufjan Stevens’s Asthmatic Kitty label, as well as production credits for releases on Asthmatic Kitty, Joyful Noise, Jealous Butcher and many more.

“Chris knew exactly what I was trying to achieve and gathered the players he knew would bring my new songs to life,” Meza says.

Musicians Davin Givhan (Bass & Guitar), Ben Lumsdaine (Drums & Percussion), and Heather Sommerhauser (Keyboards & Backing Vocals) join Meza on Guitar, Keyboards, and Vocals.

“At our very first session, the songs seemed to fall into place on their own. I had no ambitions other than capturing the groove,” Meza remembers.

In conclusion, Meza drops an inspiring reveal of his continuing ambition on the other side of emerging from recovery.

Following the release of these three EPs, he plans to take the songs he amassed during his healing and head back into the studio to start working on “one of the many albums I have ready to record.”

The first of three new three-song EPs by the crushedvelvets is streaming now. EP 2 arrives on Sept. 2 with EP 3 following on Oct. 21.