Edwina & Deko - Berlin Seasons (2014) Lossless

Introducing Edwina & Deko, two travellers who left their homes by the sea and met in a German class in Berlin.

Deko (Enrico Decolle), is a songwriter, musician and producer from Trieste in northeastern Italy, where the mountains meet the sea. Forced to choose between music and his career as a sociologist after university, he chose to be himself: a musician at heart. He became well known as an independent rock musician in Italy through his bands “Alias” and “Breakfast”, but as the band's enthusiasm dwindled he needed new inspiration, which he found in Berlin. The city's unique acoustic music scene made him realise he could reinvent himself as a one man band and inspired him to record his first solo album, The Last Goodbye, in 2011.

Meanwhile in the antipodes Edwina Dunn was growing up listening to the Beatles and Don McLean on vinyl. She inherited her brother's guitar at age 15 and taught herself to play it well enough to be able to sing along with her Beatles songbook. During the years she spent at law school in Sydney and Paris and then working as a lawyer in London, the guitar mostly collected dust, until she moved to Berlin.

Edwina and Deko met in German class, both trying to adapt to their new city and speak its language. Their teacher set the class the task of describing a famous person in German. When Edwina chose Paul McCartney and Deko chose John Lennon it wasn't long before Edwina had dusted off her guitar and the pair got together to play some Beatles covers. Deko was surprised by what he heard. There was something in Edwina's voice and the emotion she conveyed when she played which reminded him of an earlier era, something very pure and free from modern singing techniques, something very 60’s. With Deko’s encouragement, Edwina started writing her own songs and not long afterwards the pair recorded an EP in Edwina's Berlin flat. Soon after Deko invited Edwina to follow him on tour in Germany and Italy. Audiences started to ask whether they had a joint CD and with more new songs on the way Edwina & Deko now had enough new material to record an album together.

One snowy weekend in March 2013 during a short break from touring the duo locked themselves away in a studio in East Berlin, along with their co-producer Jacopo Vannini and sound engineer, Tobias Neugebauer, and recorded "Berlin Seasons" in only three days. It was no mean feat, but recording the ten songs almost totally live, they managed it. The result was an authentic album with a pure, acoustic sound and raw emotion typical of their live performances.

Edwina & Deko are an on-the-road project. They have taken their music from Germany, Italy and France all the way to Australia. Their album is also a tour in itself, geographically, seasonally and emotionally. Edwina & Deko sing about everything from the cruelty of war (Innocent) to gentrification and daily life in their adopted city (Berlin and Sunday), homesickness and home (Take me Home and Black Friday), hard times in love (Leo, On my Way, Finally Flow) and to contrast these more melancholic and emotional tracks, a couple of lively, tongue-in-cheek serenades (Josephine and Romeo). In early 2014 Edwina & Deko will be on the road again, touring Germany then Australia, and working on material for the next album, anticipated for release late 2014.