Berkshire, UK duo, Mili & Bertie, have just released their debut EP, Into The Night, and if you’ve been searching for something to chill out to, look no further. Soaring with alternative meets pop/rock with a tad bit of country a la early Kacey Musgraves, you’re in for a treat!
Featuring 5 tracks, Into The Night is only the beginning for these two, and we have a feeling their sound is going to catch on. We asked the duo to break down each track off of their EP in this exclusive track by track commentary, and boy did they deliver! Enjoy!
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Our EP is (hopefully) a lyrical and musical representation of experiencing all the complexed emotions, opportunities and lessons life has to offer. Into The Night literally represents our journey of being musicians and living each day into the night, not conforming to a typical 9-5 job or rhythm of life. We have lived these songs for the past couple of years, noting down our feelings and life, forming the songs piece by piece along the way; taking them on the road with us while we have traveled and performed. We want the songs to be heard in the back of a dead bar whilst playing small venues in cities we’ve never been to in the same way that they are heard on big stages as we continue to increase our opportunities. We want our lyrics to be interpreted in different ways and mean something to each listener and what is going on in their own life whilst holding an element of mystery as to what the lyrics mean to us as a duo and individually.
Everything we do with the instrumentation and otherwise on the EP is to serve the song; melody and lyrics. As a duo we mainly play acoustically and write all our songs starting with acoustic guitar, vocals and a sheet of lyrics. To us the songs are finished as their core acoustic version and anything we add from there is to add to the energy, emotion and vibe of the track; which we think is why we sometimes struggle to describe our genre and sound. Of course we are influenced by the music we like and artists we listen to and that makes an impression on the final sound of each track but we don’t start there, we finish there with new ears.
Cosmic Blue
“Cosmic Blue” starts with a sound clip of a hotel bar in Cannes where we first wrote it and the click of a record to begin the EP, which to us is just the best sound setting that old school/ retro vibe for our record. We were playing an outdoor gig in Cannes at a hotel bar where we had a residency. Mili looked up at the sky mid set and said, “Look at the sky Bert, it’s such a cool colour; like a Cosmic Blue.” It kind of stuck in our heads and we kept it written down in our lyric book. Our time traveling and playing was just the best. We were living in hotel rooms, performing every night, eating the best food and laying in the sun all day. It was the kind of thing where we could have just stayed still and done it forever instead of progressing and taking more risks by coming home and really pushing our original music. The song is about enjoying each moment and the journey, but not staying in those moments; always keep moving and pushing for more. “Don’t tempt me, I’ll stay here under the Cosmic Blue.”
Stay Tonight
Like “Cosmic Blue,” this is a song that we’ve been performing live for a while without having a solid recording of it. Which we think is a good thing as we really managed to shape the song more by road testing it with different audiences. We had had the bridge for a while. We often write sections of songs that don’t really fit with what we’re writing at the time.. but we still really like them, so they get recorded and then stuck in the “Later-base” (to quote Peep Show). The rest of the song came to us fairly quickly in one afternoon, and we new straight away what the bridge would be. Sometimes it just comes out, we both pick up the melody of each other as we sing and so the harmonies just naturally form, which is how a lot of our songs play out vocally.. melody which swaps and changes into harmony; each of us taking lead on different sections. We do this as we both sing lead but also because our voices are in different registers it becomes difficult for us both to sing a song in the same key without jumping above and below the melody if that makes any sense at all! This was a really tricky song to get right in a full band setting, it worked both in a slower tempo and in a faster one. We also couldn’t decide on what the ‘feel’ of the drums should be, luckily our drummer Josh is not only very talented and creative but also patient.
As for what its about.. we’ll leave that to the listener!
That’s Alright
This is another classic example of us writing a section of a song that’s not working with anything else and then coming back to it later and finishing the song in one. Mili came up with the pre-chorus which we both loved but Bertie wasn’t completely convinced that it was right for the song¼but after it all pieced together, it fit! We often come up with an idea on our own and then improve on it together; we’re both quite critical of our own and each others ideas and definitely aren’t afraid to say when we think something doesn’t work or push for an idea if we are really set on it. It’s so great to work like that because, one of us often makes the others idea better after hearing it and adapting it slightly but wouldn’t have necessarily come up with it themselves. We got halfway through writing this song and realized the meaning behind it had changed for us. It started out as a frustration with others not hearing you, a bit of a rant. But the more we sung the happy melody mid pandemic; when we watched people coming together at a time where the circumstance was frustrating for everyone, it then became about being there for people even though they may not hold the same views or understand you. A happy rock bop with an edge that we hope makes people feel good, empowered and want to dance.
“That’s Alright” sits halfway through the EP. We wrote it in lockdown and released a home recording of it which received more attention than we anticipated. We decided that the song deserves studio recording and a spot on the EP. This re-release features Baz Warne (The Stranglers); a musical influence of ours who offered to play on it after hearing our last single “The Other Side.” We were obviously incredibly pleased when Baz said he would play a solo on our song a real pinch me moment. It was one of those things where we hadn’t started to record it yet so it kind of put everything into motion. We then wanted to get in the studio ASAP to lay down enough of the song so that he could do his thing. It always takes longer than you think and we were a bit delayed getting it to him. We were worried he might not have time anymore due to the release of The Stranglers new album (which charted number 4 in the UK album charts). We got the track to him and he said he already had an idea that he’d been working on. There was some technical back and forth and then a couple of weeks later he sent it back. We were in the car on our way to a gig, and put it on as soon as we got the email. We were so pleased and surprised at what he’d done that we missed the exit to our gig! I don’t know what we were expecting but we were so chuffed at how much detail and effort he’d put into it; it’s not just a guitar solo its a whole new part of the song. He told us that we has recorded the different sections of the solo in Nashville tuning and played them one by one, layering them on top of each other; creating that unique harmonized solo which really fits with what we do vocally in our songs. We had no idea that he was going to approach it in such a different, creative way…so cool!
Fall Apart
We did an acoustic video of “Fall Apart” when we first wrote it and we got such a great response, we asked people what we should call it after playing it on one of our live stream gigs and everyone said “Fall Apart” which we hasn’t even thought of. It was originally called “Stole My Heart” which we never liked as a song title so we opened it up to be named! We had always felt it worked well acoustically but it needed it to be a big, grand ballad. The song just fell together as one big emotion. It was probably the easiest to record out of all the songs, we don’t know why; but probably its because when you are writing and performing something straight from the heart it just falls into place. Sounds cheesy but it’s true. The instrumentation is big and dynamic but simple, we added strings but that’s about it. It’s all just supporting the melody and vocals. It’s an emotional song for us and we hope it resonates with people. Our dream would be to play this one with a huge orchestra one day!
Say It Right (Next Time)
We had originally planned for it to be a four track EP but when this came together one evening after a studio session when we were finishing up bits for the other tracks we decided we wanted to add it at the end as an acoustic live performance track. It’s a very raw song and we wanted the feeling and performance to come naturally without much production. So, we played it live in one take in the studio with just Mili singing and Bert playing a vintage acoustic and that’s the version that’s on the EP. It’s a song about trying to find your voice, and it seemed fitting to have Mili sing it alone. We love the imperfections in the performance, we’d been listening a lot to some old Willie Nelson recordings at the time and were inspired to do something similar recording/ sound wise. We told Josh (our sound tech/ producer) that we wanted the recording to be ‘hot’ to hear all the imperfections like the buzz of the fret board and vocal breaths; which is why we decided to record it like we did. Again, it has that old school recording sound that we just love.. a perfect way to end our record.
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