(KRON) — One of Spotify’s latest breakout bands appears to be the product of artificial intelligence, despite not being labeled as such. The Velvet Sundown, a retro neo-psych/folk rock act, has racked up over 555,000 listens on the popular streaming platform and has over 8,000 followers.
The band appears to have released two albums in the space of about a month, “Dust and Silence,” followed by “Floating on Echoes.” A third album, “Paper Sun Rebellion,” is listed as coming soon.
With song titles like “Let It Burn,” “Dust on the Wind,” and “The Wind Still Knows Our Name,” the band has kind of a hipster-tinged classic rock vibe, that while lacking in musical depth, isn’t totally out of sorts with the sort of sound that was popular in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood back in the ’00s.
It’s the lyrics though, with their lack of specific reference to anything, that smack more blatantly of AI. Then there’s the band photos. Until a few weeks ago, The Velvet Sundown suspiciously lacked any kind of online presence.
An Instagram account popped up toward the end of June with photos of the group that look like AI. The band’s bio on Spotify is equally eyebrow raising.
Beyond the typical AI vagaries comparing the band’s sound to “a scent that suddenly takes you back somewhere you didn’t expect,” the bio claims the band was formed by “singer and mellotron player Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, Milo Rains who crafts the band’s textured synth sounds, and free-spirited percussionist Orion ‘Rio’ Del Mar.”
A quick Google search of the alleged bandmembers reveals not even the slightest hint of a digital footprint for any of them. Then there’s the songwriting credits with all songs credited to “The Velvet Sundown,” uncommon in today’s industry.
No producer is listed and more tellingly in today’s world of income-generating live gigs — no tour dates. Despite this, the band, or someone claiming to be the band, insists it’s all real.
In a series of posts on its X account, The Velvet Sundown has denied that its music is AI-generated, claiming that the music was “written in long, sweaty nights in a cramped bungalow in California with real instruments, real minds, and real soul.”
Music streaming service Deezer is so far the only platform to have flagged the band as AI-generated content.
