Pop for the planet – In conversation with Berne
Having been an avid follower and participant in the local music scene for a while, I generally assume that I already know about all the acts that are in my wheelhouse, as far as preferences are concerned. That’s until Berne proved me wrong a few months ago.
Berne is an Earth-pop duo from Malta, who have been based in London for the past few years. I’d never heard of them before until I came across their new album 789, sometime late last year. I gave the album a casual listen and remember really liking what I heard, but I regretfully admit I didn’t explore the band further at the time. Definitely a silly move on my part.
I forgot about the whole thing for a while until January of this year, when I went to see Aseo Friesacher live at Offbeat, with his trio consisting of Luke Briffa on drums and Dean Montanaro on bass (an excellent gig, but hopefully that will be a story for another article). As the show ended, Dean let the audience know that Berne were going to host their album launch at Offbeat the weekend after. If he hadn’t mentioned it, I would have had no idea. As I remembered enjoying the album and as I trust Dean’s judgement, I didn’t want to miss it.
The album launch was spread over two nights – I attended on the first night and promptly told as many people as I could to get to the second show. I was floored. I could get into a lot of reasons why it was fantastic, from the synchronicity between the textural guitars and the electronic synths to the vocals that were raw in spirit but basically pitch-perfect. But beyond the execution, the songs themselves were so intelligently written and catchy. Language is one example of a song that was instantly embedded in my brain as soon as Berne performed it, but I could say the same thing about pretty much the whole set.
I think it’s obvious that I’ve been a big fan since. The term ‘Earth-pop’ feels like a great descriptor here, even if you take the band’s environmental lyrics out of the equation (not that you should). The mix of hooks and melodies and ethereal, ambient textures makes for a grounding experience – it is music that you can get lost in, all the while giving you real pause for thought and awareness of your surroundings.
789 is an album that deserves all the attention it can get, so I immediately knew I wanted to talk to Deborah Borg Brincat and Gianluca Pulvirenti, the driving force behind Berne, about it. Here’s our conversation below.
My first question is annoyingly very general, but could you speak generally about what the songwriting process was like for 789? I’d be really keen to know about how long it took to create these songs, and how you approached this album differently compared to previous releases.
Berne: It has been really exciting to reflect on the process now that the album is out in the world. When we were making 789, we deliberately took a different approach than our earlier work. When we were making our debut EP Stay, which we released in September 2020, the songwriting and production processes were quite distinct, in that, we’d write the song from beginning to end and then work on its production. With the tracks on 789, however, the writing and producing processes were symbiotic. For some of the tracks, we’d start with one or two lines. The exploration of sounds and moods contributed to the writing until the story had been told, or the imagery expressed.
Some of these ideas go back many years. In December 2020, we collected and categorised a bunch of ideas from previous years that we’d never had the opportunity to work on. Every day, we’d pick a new idea and develop it – until we had around 12 ideas. Over the following three years, we chipped away at some of these ideas and the result was 789.
With 789, we gave ourselves the liberty to push the boundaries of what makes a track. We were guided by the track itself, e.g. if we felt like the track needed more time and space, then we’d do that; if the track didn’t fit a “standard” song structure but still told the story or painted the image, then we’d follow its lead. It’s incredibly freeing to not feel creatively confined and be led by the track itself and we will definitely be exploring this approach in future work.
I couldn’t help but notice that you frequently talk about the effect pedals and other gear that help shape your sound on Instagram. As a huge pedal nerd, I highly appreciate this. Can you talk about the role these tools play in your process? How often do they spark new ideas, as opposed to them being means of actualising the ideas in your head?
I see guitar pedals as instruments, and the “stomp-box” format doesn’t stop me from using those pedals on literally anything. In the studio, I always have a stereo send-and-return set up from my DAW so I can quickly and easily patch in any effect pedal chain that piques my interest. Sometimes I know which pedal I need to use to achieve the particular sound/texture I have in mind, and other times it’s more of an experiment – it doesn’t always work, and the result may not necessarily be what the song needs, but it’s worth trying, and doesn’t take much time.
In our case, I don’t think they’ve been used to generate new ideas but rather take existing sounds and make them more interesting, or sit better in the mix. For example in Waves, the weird looped sample that goes on until the end of the song is a result of passing a bunch of different vocal takes into the Habit by Chase Bliss, recording everything that it played back and then sifting through the output.
When I caught your live show in Offbeat in January, I was struck by how full your sound was for a duo set-up. How do you approach translating your songs from studio to live performance?
Oh, thank you so much! Our live show is ever-evolving, but we’re very happy with where we’re at now. In the past, we would think about how to perform a track only after it was produced, but that left a lot to be desired. We recently inverted the process and started imagining how we would perform the track as we produced it. It’s crucial to us to transmit the vibe and energy of the tracks during our live show, so we spend a lot of time programming details within Ableton Live to be able to do this.
How has your overall sound and trajectory as a band evolved since moving away from Malta to London?
We’ve always been environmentally minded, however, merging our work in music along with our work in climate and social justice has been a real game-changer on all fronts. It has provided us with the space to be authentic and unapologetically driven by our values. It’s steered us towards collaborating with organisations who are doing great climate and social justice work to amplify our collective message.
During this time, we’ve also worked our way from alternative/indie guitar-led music akin to Interpol and Editors, to singer-songwriter art-pop in the vein of Regina Spektor and Marina, to a dark-synth electronic sound that you can hear on 789!
It’s not always easy to associate being a musician with sustainable, eco-friendly practices – what we do relies on a lot of travel and electricity. But obviously, we’d all love to make a more positive impact on the environment. As this is something that’s clearly close to your hearts, can you share what sustainable habits musicians reading this can adopt?
100% agree with this! There are many challenges to living and working in a way that leaves a lesser impact on the planet. But..millions of people taking imperfect action is better than a handful of people doing things perfectly. We’ve not cracked it yet, but what we can say is that all our activity factors in our impact on the planet. Some activity we’ve incorporated into our work and projects:
Building a low-impact website that is 100% powered by sun, wind, and water and does away with data-heavy elements such as photos and videos and encouraging others to do the same – https://berneofficial.com/#low-impact
Our interactive music map that highlights environmental initiatives around the world – https://stayremixed.berneofficial.com/
All tracks on 789 are co-written with The Earth via EarthPercent, raising funds by diverting a portion of royalties to environmental organizations.
We led a tree planting campaign as part of our single release in collaboration with Just One Tree with a result of 54 new trees planted in reforestation projects.
Merch has been a tricky one for us as we can’t bring ourselves to produce yet another t-shirt or tote bag! We recently launched a collection of album prints, one for each track on 789. The beautifully illustrated representations of the tracks made by Noosha Alai-South are printed on FSC® certified natural paper.
Travel is a big issue too – we’re not yet at a stage that requires us to jet off from one country to the next so wherever we can, we will take a bus or a train to get to a show, but this is one to think about as we continue to grow.
What’s next for Berne and for getting 789 out to wider audiences?
After two sold-out shows in Malta, we are going on tour!! This is such exciting news to share as it’s been in the works for a long time! We’re playing a show at the EU Commission in Brussels and a couple of cities in the UK! All details can be found here: https://berneofficial.com/#live
Once we’re back from touring, we’ll be carving out some time and space to start creating new work, which is scary but so, so exciting!
Want to support Berne? Here’s the best way to do it according to the band:
The best place to support our work is our trusty newsletter, Bandcamp, or join us on Patreon where you’ll get exclusive access to behind-the-scenes content including a weekly reflection. Our low-impact website (https://berneofficial.com) offers a snapshot of who we are and what we do, or follow us on Instagram or TikTok which will never show you any of our updates ;)