Edwina & Deko - Berlin Seasons (Monkey Records)
Edwina & Deko - Berlin Seasons |
An Italian and an Australian walk
in to a German language class in Berlin and bond over a love of Lennon and
McCartney which leads them to form an acoustic folk duo and release an album
together. It's no joke. This is the story of how Edwina & Deko came to be
and the very good reason that their album is called 'Berlin Seasons'.
'Innocent' is the opening song and it is a real 60s folk protest song complete
with eerie whistling and stern lyrics about battles being lost and won. 'Berlin'
is more of a soft love letter to the duo's adoptive city while 'Romeo' is a
more jaunty, almost busked affair with a tale of ill-conceived love and
matriarchal advice woven through the lyrics. Edwina & Deko are not the most
technically astounding musicians or singers but what they excel at is the craft
of songwriting and storytelling, part of the process that is so often
overlooked these days. 'Home' and 'Sunday' are great examples of this ability
as the duo share what can only be stories from their past.
The delightfully delicate strum
of 'Leo' sees Deko take the lead on the vocals for a change and the sombre tone
of autumn in a bleak German city is infused throughout this tune. The smooth,
comforting tones of Edwina's vocal style is brought to the fore on 'Black
Friday' while 'Josephine' is more of a jaunty tale of infatuation and innocent
love. This is a raw collection of songs with very little production but that's
the way acoustic folk songs ought to be presented so as not to detract from the
important lyrical content that takes more prominence as shown in the story
telling beauty of 'On My Way'. As the duo bring proceedings to a close with
'Finally Flow' there is a gentle but melancholy calm that falls over the music which
makes me want to stare in to the middle distance of a rainy day but it's all
blue skies and sun here so I'll save that one for another day. A fine
collection of songs indeed and I would urge you to make a big mug of tea before
spending some time getting wrapped up in the stories contained within each one
of them.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/edwinadeko?fref=ts