Monday, November 4, 2013

Brooklyn and Berlin-based duo rescues discarded tape deck to cut tracks for Brazilian-influenced debut EP as Take Berlin.

Hear the first single “Vermona,” the true story of a girl who escapes to the west in the trunk of a car, via BlackBook now.

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Take Berlin (L-R): Jesse Barnes, Yvonne Ambrée. Photo Credit: Fabrizio del Rincon.

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“Vermona” is the first single from the “Lionize” EP by Take Berlin

 




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Check out the premiere of “Vermona” by Take Berlin exclusively via BlackBook!

‘Vermona’ was the first song we wrote together,” says Take Berlin’s Jesse Barnes of bandmate Yvonne Ambrée. “The song focuses on the true story of a girl who is raised by her grandmother after the mother escapes to the West in the trunk of a car.”  Even with the heavy subject matter, “Vemona” is still hopeful, mainly because of the existing reality of these children (the girl in the song, Ambrée herself, and countless others) grew up under communist rule.  “They were experiencing the world for the first time and since they had nothing to compare it to, the world was still a beautiful place,” explains Barnes.

The “Vermona” of the title refers to an actual East German musical instrument company.  Ambrée acquired a Vermona synthesizer from her grandmother, and through the song, the keyboard is personified to represent all the stories and “relics” from East Berlin.  “Of course, Vermona also sounds like a woman’s name,” says Barnes.

Take Berlin’s upcoming “Lionize” EP represents the first collaborative effort from these two established musical talents. For their “day jobs,” Barnes can be found playing guitar with Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Lulu Gainsbourg, and Aloe Blacc among others, and Ambrée is an in-demand backing vocalist with some of Germany’s biggest artists, and more recently with US-based acts such as Syl Johnson, Kendra Morris and Sleigh Bells.

In the winter of 2011, Barnes pulled a discarded cassette deck from a snowy pile of trash in Brooklyn. Nearly two years later, this impulse has proven instrumental in contributing to the course of his musical career, as just a few months after rescuing the tape deck, chance led Barnes to Ambrée for the first time.  They soon formed Take Berlin and a half-dozen trips across the Atlantic later (Barnes is based in Brooklyn, Ambrée is based in Berlin), the duo has now finished the debut Take Berlin EP “Lionize,” realizing the greater fate of that discarded tape deck which was used to record all of the EP’s basic tracks.

Take Berlin is available for interviews.  Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.


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Take Berlin Live

11/05 Boston, MA @ Beat Hotel
11/07 Cleveland, OH @ Happy Dog
11/10 Toronto, ON @ Musideum
11/13 Philadelphia, PA @ North Star Bar
11/16 Rochester, NY @ The Bug Jar
11/17 Burlington, VT @ Radio Bean
11/19 Brooklyn, NY @ Friends and Lovers
11/20 Brooklyn, NY @ Cameo Gallery

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Take Berlin
“Lionize”
(S/R, Dec. 3rd, 2013)



01. Vermona (STREAM | DOWNLOAD | MP3)
02. Lionize
03. Eaves
04. Kentucky
05. Sebastian
06. Stranger

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Take Berlin Links


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Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion

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