Son of the Velvet Rat is a folk noir band from Austria currently based in Joshua Tree, California, United States.

Son of the Velvet Rat was founded in 2003 by Austrian songwriter Georg Altziebler and organist and accordionist Heike Binder.

[3][4][1] Son of the Velvet Rat have also drawn comparisons to Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen, Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Radiohead.

[3][5] The band started out with the sparsely instrumented releases, Spare Some Sugar [For the Rat] and By My Side, by the California indie label Starfish Records.

[6] In 2008, Son of the Velvet Rat was nominated for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award in the Alternative category, and they performed on BalconyTV.

It is a live album that was recorded from three shows in Vienna, Austria, Wredenhagen, Germany and Burbank, California for their 2017 tour supporting Dorado.

While highly evocative of the Mojave Desert landscape referenced in the lyrics (also the album's recording location), the songs of Solitary Company have a way of taking listeners “to so many places with subtle tones and gestures” [23] through “ten song-shaped stories that appear to tell themselves without effort,” [23] as is described in the end-notes written by Robert Rotifer.